Social media intelligence: The national security–privacy nexus

Globally, changes in technology have always shaped the intelligence collection environment. South Africa is no exception. The emergence of satellite imagery had a significant influence on geographic intelligence (GEOINT) capabilities and, similarly, the emergence of the telegram and later the telephone had an equally significant effect on the signals intelligence (SIGINT) environment. With communications being revolutionised by mobile technology, such as recording, geo-positioning and photography, collection and distribution are ubiquitous. Smart mobile communication technology is also the driver of social media everywhere – at all ages, for state and non-state purposes, non-stop. More recently, social media intelligence (SOCMINT) became a key content domain for exploitation by the intelligence community. Examples of the successful exploitation of SOCMINT can be found internationally. It would be surprising if South Africa is not yet a statistic in terms of this phenomenon. Initially, many organisations viewed (and some still do) SOCMINT as an open-source intelligence (OSINT) tool. However, when considering the South African (SA) intelligence landscape, the concepts ‘democracy’, ‘transparency’ and ‘intelligence oversight’ are calibrating factors to bear in mind. It is also important to consider the influence of the national legislative framework governing the use of SOCMINT in South Africa. It then becomes clear that issues – such as the right to privacy – mean that SOCMINT is probably no longer covered by the scope of the OSINT definition and that intelligence organisations collecting social media content and producing SOCMINT should adhere to the legislative framework governing the collection and use of social media content and the production of SOCMINT. This article argues that SOCMINT and OSINT should be separate collection domains to protect the imperative of the right to privacy and national security requirements in a balanced manner by means of unambiguous national regulation in the interest of all citizens

Is open source GIS feasible in military operations? evaluation by applying a USE case

CITATION: Henrico, S., Coetzee, S. & Cooper, A. 2020. Is open source GIS feasible in military operations? evaluation by applying a USE case. Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, 48(1):41-60, doi:10.5787/48-1-1259.The original publication is available at http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.zaThe study of terrain and all its related elements and facets are of crucial importance to the military. Lodi, Smit, and Ayirebi agreed with this statement and added that the importance of terrain was recognised by military leaders more than two thousand years ago.[i] Military operations can occur at any of the three levels of war: tactical, operational and strategic and can be a combat operation or a military operation other than war (MOOTW). Information about the geography empowers a military commander to plan and execute a mission successfully. As technology developed and evolved, geographic information systems (GIS) have come to play a major role in this. Today, a military operation without the use of GIS is unthinkable. In a developing country like the South Africa, however, licenses for proprietary GIS software, vendor-exclusive training and the bureaucracy of the procurement cycle add to the time and costs of a mission. The question arises whether open source software is a feasible alternative. Since the South African National Defence Force was initially trained in the use of proprietary software and it therefore became a strong habit, the perception now exits that FOSSGIS products are neither mature enough nor user-friendly enough to be used in military operations. This study evaluates the use of an open source desktop GIS product, QGIS, in a use case for a military operation “other than war” (MOOTW). QGIS outputs were compared to those produced in ArcGIS, a proprietary desktop GIS product widely used in military operations. The user-friendliness of the two products as well as pricing was also compared. Results show that the QGIS outputs provide the operational commander with equivalent information to successfully plan and execute a mission. This implies that open source GIS is suitable for military operations, especially those with limited budgets and at short notice, such as in the case of disaster relief. [i] Lodi, K., Smit, H. & Ayirebi, G. (2014). Terrain analysis in the course curricula of the South African Army Engineer Corps. Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies, 42, 102-121.https://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/1259Publisher's versio