PUBLISHED
October 19, 2025
A 23-year-old from Alpha unit of the London Metropolitan Police monitors Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube to predict and prevent gang violence and knife crime, using nothing more than publicly available information and online tools that can be used by practically anyone, anywhere.
Young men and women of Interpol lead a multinational operation that uses publicly available data to track online recruitment and deceptive job offers, identify recruiters, and match faces via facial recognition to stem the tide of human trafficking. This has resulted in significant successes since 2024. Most of these Interpol officers are less than 30 years old, many under 25.
‘Operation Identify Me’, an Interpol and European Police cold case initiative helps to identify unidentified deceased women by releasing forensic facial reconstructions and asking the public for help, using data in the public domain.
Dozens of agencies employ young people to sift through publicly available data, without excessive amounts of funds required.
Huge media organizations (think BBC scale) utilise Gen-Z s to fact check their news before getting it on air, using data that anybody else can also access.
All of this is happening not only in Europe but across Asia, Africa, the Middle East —
I could run out of words before I run out of examples. Suffice to say there is an entire ecosystem out there, premised solely on openly accessible data in public domain, driven by openly accessible tools.
Young, tech-savvy officers tucked into units using publicly available information are quietly rewriting the rulebook on day-to-day policing. They spend long hours trawling openly accessible public data—social posts, marketplace listings, geotagged photos, public records and even stray metadata—using the same free or low-cost tools anyone can learn. What they do with that ordinary, searchable stuff is anything but ordinary: by connecting a suspicious “for sale” ad to a series of stolen-car reports, mapping repeated meetup points that point to a local drug gang, or flagging a string of phishing posts that lead back to an online fraud ring, these analysts turn loose signals into fast leads.
Everyday work surfaces crimes that used to hide in plain sight—vehicle theft and chop-shop networks, organized crime, gang activity, online hate crimes, fraud and blackmail, counterfeit and stolen-goods sales on sites, small-scale drug distribution, romance and investment scams, serial shoplifting and organized retail theft, cyberstalking and harassment, and even human-trafficking recruitment cloaked in job adverts.
I am not even going into the counter-extremism and counter-terrorism realm — all intelligence agencies and counter terrorism units of the world worth their name have been using open source information(OSIF) for the longest time.
This data, available even to you and me, is now the backbone of an increasing number of successfully proactive intelligence operations against terrorism and extremism, across the globe.
How relevant Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) can be for policing in Pakistan
Visualise this. A constable in Lahore scrolls through OLX. One suspiciously cheap Honda Civic listing catches his eye. A quick check on the Excise website shows it was stolen in Karachi last month. Within hours, a decoy buyer sets up a meet. Arrest made. Car recovered. All from a public listing.
In Peshawar, a narcotics officer searches Facebook and Telegram using keywords like “ice,” “party goods,” and “Hayatabad delivery”. The numbers and usernames repeat across posts. A quick cross-check with telecom data leads straight to a dealer. No undercover work — just digital footprints hiding in plain view.
In Faisalabad, officers compile community CCTV clips shared on local Facebook groups. Plotting the incidents on a simple Google Map reveals a hotspot near Canal Road — the same time, same type of bike, same helmet. Patrols shift accordingly. Snatchings drop.
A Karachi sub-inspector monitors Facebook “visa” ads promising “Dubai in 7 days.” The same phone number appears across multiple fake agencies. The FIA steps in, and a trafficking racket collapses. OSINT turns a Facebook scam into a criminal lead.
A missing child’s photo shared on Facebook catches a constable’s attention in Quetta. A reverse image search shows the same picture on an Instagram story geotagged at Saryab Road. The clue leads to CCTV footage — and the child is found safe the next day.
Before a major rally in Islamabad, young police officers track trending hashtags and viral TikTok clips tagged “D-Chowk”. The data shows where crowds are forming hours before police control rooms get calls. Traffic is diverted early; confrontation avoided.
Integrity officers at Police HQ monitor hashtags like #PunjabPolice and #ThanaCulture. Repeated mentions of one station’s name pop up in complaints about bribery. Screenshots become evidence. Internal inquiries follow. Public sentiment, transformed into accountability.
This is not fantasy- it is OSINT in action and it does not require huge budgets. In fact, if utilised intelligently, it does not require any additional money or resources.
It does not require expensive computing systems. It does not require access to any protected data. It does not require subscription to expensive apps. It is not restricted or privileged data that only a select few can access. It does not even require years of training — there is any number of Gen-Z police officers out there who were ‘born with a computer in their lap’, metaphorically speaking. Guided in the right direction, they can utilise OSINT anytime, with just a few weeks of mentoring.
This is Open Source Intelligence
Open Source Intelligence — or OSINT — is, quite simply, the art and science of finding meaning in what’s already out there. It’s the disciplined process of collecting, analysing, and interpreting publicly available information — from social media, online marketplaces, maps, and news sites to leaked databases, videos, and metadata — to generate actionable insights.
Unlike classified intelligence, OSINT doesn’t rely on covert means; it uses what anyone with an internet connection can access. What makes it powerful isn’t secrecy, but skill — the ability to see patterns where others see noise.
For law enforcement, that skill translates into a quiet revolution. OSINT empowers ordinary police officers to act as data detectives, using public digital traces to enhance visibility, prevention, and response. It’s the difference between waiting for a call and predicting where the next one might come from.
When a police department integrates OSINT into its daily rhythm, the results are striking.
A Lahore beat officer who learns to scrape geotagged crime reports or viral TikTok videos can map petty theft hotspots in real time.
In Quetta, officers can actually see what the locations of their prospective raid looks like, and can plan access and raiding strategies while having ‘chai’ in their office.
A cyber unit in Karachi can monitor Telegram or Facebook Marketplace for the sale of stolen electronics, counterfeit goods, or fake licenses — catching patterns invisible to traditional patrols.
In Rawalpindi, officers using Google Earth and Street View can verify whether illegal structures or encroachments have reappeared after prior enforcement, without even leaving their desks.
Using OSINT across disciplines
The potential of OSINT extends far beyond traditional policing. You dont need a huge stretch of imagination to envisage how much time and effort OSINT can save for departments like the newly formed Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (PERA) by identifying encroachments and planning operations without physically leaving the office.
The ramifications of cross cutting across enforcement, administration and other disciplines is game-changing.
It is now being successfully applied in areas such as disaster response, financial crime analysis, counter-disinformation efforts, border management, and even environmental protection. From tracing illegal wildlife trade routes to identifying early signals of civil unrest or cyberattacks, OSINT has proven to be a force multiplier across multiple domains.
The ramifications of such cross-cutting use — bridging enforcement, administration, intelligence, and governance — are truly transforming how institutions anticipate, prevent, and respond to emerging threats in real time.
Do our civilian law enforcement agencies have significant OSINT capabilities?
Presumably, the Counter Terrorism Departments (CTDs) of our police forces must be OSINT proficient– if they aren’t already, then they need to be, as of yesterday. Intelligence Bureau must be superbly trained in OSINT, and presumably has an OSINT cadre. I would imagine that the newly formed National Cyber Crime Investigations Agency(NCCIA) would also be an OSINT Center of excellence. Perhaps the operational units of police need to catch up?
When the digital footprint of practically any crime in today’s world keep accumulating in the cyberspace, any agency that is left behind in adopting OSINT will quite simply, be left behind.
Even traditional community policing gets sharper with OSINT: tracking the spread of misinformation or inflammatory speech online lets police intervene early before panic or violence takes hold. Public complaints shared on X (Twitter) or TikTok can be turned into a live barometer of trust — identifying which stations or officials draw consistent grievances and which are earning quiet respect.
In essence, OSINT is policing’s great equalizer. It doesn’t demand deep pockets or advanced surveillance infrastructure — just curiosity, discipline, and digital literacy. It levels the field between under-resourced departments and more advanced agencies. It transforms the smartphone into an investigative tool.
And in a country like Pakistan — young, connected, and data-rich (just see number of Pakistani TikToks) — OSINT is not a futuristic add-on; it’s an opportunity waiting to be seized. Imagine hundreds of young constables, newly trained in OSINT fundamentals, forming the digital backbone of every police district: flagging scams before they spread, mapping threats before they escalate, and gathering digital clues before they vanish. That’s not science fiction — that’s smart policing for the real world.
A blueprint for OSINT policing in Pakistan
The future of Pakistani policing may not depend on massive budgets or secret surveillance. It depends on smart officers who know how to find truth in what’s already public — and connect the dots faster than criminals can hide them.
Observations of an OSINT Observer
Even though I may know a bit of the context, but almost anyone who hits thirty will be an outsider in todays OSINT world. The OSINT cyberspace is occupied by twenty-one to twenty-three somethings, and finding a 23-year-old highly sought-after OSINT analyst is not an aberration, it’s the norm.
A great majority of OSINT practitioners have taught themselves over the years. Many of them have been instrumental in developing the apps that other OSINT users utilize. Typically, an OSINT practitioner is fiercely protective about public access to data. Open source data is not just their livelihood, its their raison d’être.
There is fiercely contested debate in the OSINT world about the newly emerged ‘OSINT platforms’. While providing convenience under neatly arranged dashboards, these programs are quietly turning OSINT into a business, by giving expensive subscriptions to what is essentially, freely available public information.
In essence, you can perform the same functions almost always for free, or for a limited subscription. The pricey subscriptions just charge for arranging the data in one place.
Notwithstanding, many organisations feel pressured to buy expensive commercial platforms. These can accelerate workflows, offer convenient dashboards, and provide curated datasets — but they bring drawbacks: recurring costs, vendor lock-in, opaque collection/process methods, and potential challenges in court if provenance cannot be independently demonstrated.
In the context of Pakistan, the presentation of OSINT-derived evidence in courts will likely present significant challenges, if law enforcement agencies rely heavily on commercial platforms.
Courts almost invariably demand verifiable provenance — that is, clarity on how exactly the information was obtained. When a commercial OSINT platform produces results “magically” by clicking a few buttons, it becomes exceedingly difficult for investigators to explain the platform’s back-end processes or data sourcing methods.
Unless the platform itself is willing to disclose its proprietary mechanisms — which is rare — such evidence risks being treated as unverified or inadmissible. Moreover, many of these platforms use user-specific experience, analytics, and recommendation algorithms that can subtly skew search results, making repeatability and consistency problematic.
For this reason, reliance on open-access, freely available, and independently verifiable tools is critical. These tools allow replication of results by any investigator or court expert, thereby ensuring procedural transparency and evidentiary reliability.
If one such open-access tool ceases to function, a comparable alternative can usually be found — unlike commercial systems that may abruptly alter their user agreements or terminate access. Dependence on a single proprietary platform, therefore, not only creates operational and financial vulnerabilities but also undermines the credibility of OSINT evidence within the judicial process.
Thus police in Pakistan need, within our resource constraints, freely accessible public data, analysed for free.
We have the data, we have the young police officers ‘born with computers’, do we have the OSINT skills?
If not, why not, given that this can be implemented with a few weeks training, and with absolutely no need for huge budgets?
The blueprint for OSINT policing in Pakistan is as simple as A, B, C
Let me lay it out; a sustainable OSINT capability prioritises open and low-cost sources, a small set of well-documented paid (not pricey) tools only where they genuinely add value, and internal toolkits and scripts that codify repeatable processes. The guiding principle: buy speed where it is mission-critical, but train people first. Tech savvy young people we already have, in droves. They just need to guided in the right direction.
The power — and the ethical weight — lies in how public data is stitched together: when used carefully, it lets a handful of curious young police officers prevent harm, speed arrests and give victims answers, all without breaking down closed doors—just by looking, openly, where the rest of us already are.
The writer is a security analyst
