When we launched the Pathfinder blog in late 2023, we set out to provide readers with a valuable source of information and insight into the state of law enforcement as a whole, and how it’s being shaped by technology. Our goal was to create a space where agents could encounter new ideas, techniques, and strategies that could be implemented in their own organization.
But this blog also serves as a temperature check of sorts — and by diving into the data of what stories had the most views, is a way to understand what topics are really important to modern police forces and law enforcement agencies. So, with that in mind, here are the three Pathfinder blog posts that generated the greatest levels of engagement in 2024 — and what that might mean for LEAs going into the new year.
#3 Tools and Techniques: Leveraging Social Media Investigation Tools in Law Enforcement
Social media platforms can play several crucial roles in law enforcement. At one level, they serve as a key communications channel between LEAs and the communities they serve, driving engagement and building trust in much the same way that a “beat cop” might have in their own specific neighborhoods in the middle of the last century. Some police services have proven especially adept at using social media for community outreach, and have reaped the benefits of doing so.
Aside from such “feel good” stories, social platforms represent a potentially significant investigative tool. Our third-most popular post of 2024 explored this potential, outlining the challenges involved in harnessing the chaotic sea of social media activity to yield actionable intelligence and tangible results. The post also highlighted specific use cases and investigative challenges that can be addressed effectively through social media. These included, among others:
- Improved ability to identify suspects, persons of interest, known associates, or witnesses when starting from a base of incomplete or inaccurate information.
- Placing a person of interest in context, by uncovering their connections with others in the community.
- Sourcing eyewitnesses, and video or photographic evidence, as it’s posted on social media after a crime or other notable incident.
It’s important to note that social platforms’ bridge-building and investigative roles are complementary, and can reinforce each others’ successes. An active social media presence helps build trust between the community and its policing agencies, which improves the likelihood of receiving actionable intelligence from private citizens via social media. This in turn can help generate more and timelier arrests and interventions, creating safer neighborhoods and generating a higher level of trust. Over time, this can create a virtuous cycle.
#2 How Leveraging SOCMINT Can Uncover “Card Cracking” Scammers
Criminals congregate wherever potential victims do, and the hundreds of millions of Americans who habitually use social media are exposed to many forms of criminal activity. Harassment, cyberstalking, and sextortion are some high-profile examples, but much of the criminal activity on social platforms revolves around fraud.
This post from June revolves around “card cracking” scams, in which the victims are duped into depositing bad checks and forwarding money to the scammers. To complicate matters further, some criminals manipulate the victim into active participation in the scam. This places the onus on law enforcement agencies to determine whether these participants are victims or co-conspirators, and our blog post explains how social media intelligence can help investigators make that determination.
#1 Technology in Law Enforcement: Integrating Open Source Intelligence Tools
Securing actionable intelligence is a major priority in law enforcement. Conventional sources such as tip lines, confidential informants, and undercover operations can all result in case-breaking information, but those sources are erratic, often unreliable, and resource-intensive.
The availability and quality of data available to LEAs through law enforcement and commercial database products addresses many (but not all) of those issues, providing a limited but well-vetted base of data for most US residents. Open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools address the limitations and blind spots of legacy and regulated data sources, yielding insights, connections, and adjacent data from public and non-regulated sources, including but not limited to social media.
This post from April 2024 attempts to provide a broad overview of the major categories within OSINT, name-check leading and representative vendors within each category, and suggest real-world use cases for each type of product. From the high level of engagement this post generated, we can infer that interest in OSINT tools is high and widespread and that LEAs perceive those tools as a potential solution to many of the challenges they face in their day-to-day operations.
Empowering Law Enforcement Through Technology
The daily “meat-and-potatoes” work of policing and decision making will remain with human officers. There is still no substitute in most situations for a thinking, watchful human in uniform, not solely in operational terms but also as a visible and unequivocal symbol of the law itself. Yet the role of technology as a complement to human policing, from cameras and drones to AI and OSINT tools, is unequivocal and rapidly expanding.
Over the course of the coming year, we’ll continue to help make sense of it all on this blog, explaining the role and uses of technology – ours, and that of other vendors – in policing. We’ll do our best to identify and address emerging trends and topics within the industry and place them in the context of our readers’ daily work and challenges.
Every LEA has its own unique combination of needs, and despite our best efforts, posts aimed at a broad audience will not always be able to address those needs (and the resulting questions) directly. To learn how Spokeo for Business can specifically address the challenges faced by your own LEA, reach out to our Spokeo SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) through the contact information on our Law Enforcement page. The team will be happy to answer your questions in detail, provide a demonstration of the product, and or arrange a no-cost hands-on trial.
Sources
Police1: Roundtable: How to Match Your Agency’s Social Media Strategy with Community Needs
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin: Perspective: Impact of Positive Stories Through Social Media
National Institute of Justice: Ranking Needs for Fighting Digital Abuse: Sextortion, Swatting, Doxing, Cyberstalking and Non-Consensual Pornography
US Federal Trade Commission: Social Media: A Golden Goose for Scammers