Information procurement via social media

For the eighth time, interested representatives of Swiss and foreign police forces as well as industry gathered for an exchange at the Swiss Police Informatics Congress at the Stade de Suisse in Bern. This national platform offers IT service providers and providers a good opportunity to exchange experiences about implemented or planned projects. Police representatives are interested in the latest market trends, industry and business representatives in the needs of users.

In addition to technical topics, forensics and social media were at the centre of this year's presentations. The collection of preventive police or intelligence information from social media is becoming increasingly important in order to identify movements and trends in the population. The latter in particular is also of interest to the federal government, as the intelligence service explained in a presentation organised by Eraneos. But how are the data from public sources now evaluated so that, for example, a planned demonstration or even an attack by militant activists can be detected at an early stage? What requirements are placed on the operation, data evaluation, algorithms or adaptability of the applications?

Eraneos supports the Federal Intelligence Service (NDB) in preparing a study that assesses the possibilities of such analyses and their significance.