In most jurisdictions, private Instagram posts are admissible as evidence provided they meet standard legal criteria for relevance and authenticity. The fact that a post is "private" (visible only to followers) generally does not create an absolute privilege against its use in court. Key Requirements for Admissibility For a private post to be admitted into evidence, the following must typically be established. Relevance: The content must directly relate to a fact in dispute,

The proliferation of open-source data (OSD) – found across social media posts, self-published blogs, and other open-source repositories – is materially transforming the world of investigations. However, obtaining meaningful insights from the increasingly large volumes of publicly available data is the biggest challenge facing effective investigations today. What is OSINT? OSINT is a military intelligence term, continues to be a normal technique in counter-terrorism, counter

As stated previously “open source” refers to data that is readily available for public consumption. Rather than coming from a single location, OSD can be taken from a range of sources for use in OSINT investigations. It is not enough, however, to simply think of using OSINT. It must be done with intelligence and care. The internet is a highly valuable data source, but reliance on manual investigation methods risks overwhelming analysts and investigators with irrelevant or low

OSINT has been widely utilised across government and military applications since as early as the Second World War, supporting investigations into global issues, including counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation. As many former government investigators enter the private sector, OSINT’s popularity in industries such as financial services has steadily increased. Many organisations now consider OSINT a key part of investigative best practice, thanks to the range of benefits

Data ethics are an obvious concern. Beyond the clear moral imperative to investigate ethically, GDPR requires organisations to focus on data storage compliance. However, there are wider ethical considerations when it comes to data collection. It is essential that organisations instil ethics and data privacy within intelligence processes from the start. As OSINT is generated from publicly available information, it could be said to be more ethical than intelligence gathered f