On November 28, the OSINT Foundation announced the publication of a document on open-source intelligence (OSINT) definitions. This document supports the foundation’s strategic goals of formalizing the OSINT discipline’s tradecraft and establishing professional certifications. It is the first deliverable of the foundation’s practitioner committee, which defined OSINT, publicly available information (PAI), and commercially available information (CAI), and leveraged its 90 years’ collective OSINT experience to provide clarification on usage of the terms, and an explanation of the nature of OSINT.
This definitions document marks the beginning of a long-term effort to establish well-reasoned standards for the OSINT discipline, based on an inclusive and deliberative process, according to the foundation. The foundation also plans to develop a standards document similar to the GEOINT Essential Body of Knowledge, which was established by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. The resulting corpus will serve as the basis for an independent professional certification.
While the focus of the OSINT Foundation is the U.S. Intelligence Community, and the definitions are not binding on those outside of the community, there is nonetheless, great value in the document for non-IC practitioners. The foundation’s document lays out fundamental concepts based on precedent and law, while offering critical insight into the nature of the discipline to establish clear boundaries for what is and is not OSINT. These clear boundaries will help assuage concerns regarding potential violations of civil liberties and civil rights.
Review the OSINT Definitions document.
Source: OSINT Foundation
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