Social Media: From Intelligence to Evidence

With the proliferation of smart devices, the amount of intelligence and investigative information readily available to today’s investigators is increasing every day. Using open source information, fictitious accounts, lawful intercepts, and confidential informants, investigators can leverage the public’s fascination with posting all aspects of their life into actionable intelligence and evidence collection. This course will discuss the popular applications, best practices for creating fictitious accounts, as well as locating, preserving, and presenting social media intelligence and evidence for investigations. This course will introduce the tools available to assist investigators in navigating the ever-expanding catalog of readily available popular apps. The course also instructs how to gather evidence displayed or hidden in social media and other sites, as well as investigating and preempting violence. Methods will be provided on how to protect the officer’s real identity on social media; establishing a safe and thorough undercover persona through social media; conducting undercover investigations through the Internet and social media; and using these resources as a tool and an enhancement for a variety of law enforcement and investigative operations.

Attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop, notebook computer or tablet to this class – but recent model smart phones should also be sufficient.

Course Instruction Includes:

·        Open-Source Intelligence for Law Enforcement

·        Navigating the Internet and Social Media for Law Enforcement

·        Using the Internet and Social Media for Intelligence Gathering

·        Gathering Criminal Intelligence from Social Media and the Internet

·        Going Undercover on Social Media

·        Identifying Threats and Violence through the Internet and Social Media

·        Tracking Protester Activity through Social Media

·        Tracking Missing Persons, Criminals, and Others

·        Cell Phone Apps used by Criminals, Gangs and Terrorist

·        Cell Phone Apps and Technology used Against Law Enforcement

·        Smart Phone Utilization during Law Enforcement Investigations 

·        Doxing techniques

·        Increasing Officer Safety, and much more!