IC Adopts New Standards for Open-Source Intelligence

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released new guidance at the beginning of the month to further standardize open-source intelligence (OSINT) discipline and foster partnerships between the Intelligence Community (IC) and the private sector.

“This is really an opportunity for us to do what the [intelligence] community has asked us to do,” IC OSINT Executive Jason Barrett told GovCIO Media & Research. “This is the first of several updates that will need to happen from a guidance perspective. And Congress is asking us about this, and I think we’re all looking forward to how we can better support, enable and empower our IC colleagues to do their job even better than they have been.”

The document, titled “ICS 206-01: Sourcing Requirements for Disseminated Analytic Products (Publicly Available Information, Commercially Available Information, and Open Source Intelligence),” establishes stricter guidelines for citing publicly and commercially available information in its analytical products and outlines interoperability standards for OSINT across the IC.

ODNI Senior OSINT Advisor Chris Rasmussen said that agency and industry partners have provided positive feedback on the guidance.

“I’ve seen just a lot of excitement with on the government, even the private sector side, … that it is completely unclassified, that is it is so shareable to everyone,” Rasmussen told GovCIO Media & Research. “I was pleased to see that note from a private firm saying we’re going to model this for our sourcing standards.”

The guidance, according to Barrett and Rasmussen, allows the IC to leverage a wider range of information in its analysis and make the information useable across the IC, other government agencies, foreign allies and industry partners.

“I think interoperability has a much more tangible and almost immediate opportunity because of the accessibility of open-source intelligence within all of those domains,” said Barrett. “If we can really leverage that and capitalize on that accessibility, it gives us an opportunity to really start sharing and relying on each other’s information, if we can start to build trust in the information that’s being shared.”

The guidance addresses the growing use of stand-alone OSINT analytic products in the IC. These products, generated by analysts specializing in open-source research, provide valuable insights that can complement traditional intelligence sources like human intelligence and signals intelligence. The ICS guidelines establish protocols for incorporating these products and ensuring proper attribution to enhance standardization and accountability in the IC.

Barrett noted that the guidance is a first step in a constantly evolving strategy.

“This is a foundational document that is really important to set common standards. It’s guidance,” said Barrett. “So some people … may feel like it’s not 100% complete, or maybe they may have some differing views on it. We welcome some input.”

Barrett said that the guidance allows better intelligence gathering across foreign allies by standardizing and modernizing methods.

“There is a widespread interest in figuring out how to do this better, how to work together more closely, so that we can share information more rapidly. We can support warfighters on the edge, diplomats needing to engage around various regions and decision makers,” said Barrett. “Having the ability to more easily access each other’s information, because we trust the trade craft and the standards in which it’s been put together, allows us to get to that.”

The guidelines come as the IC faces increasing pressure to adapt to a rapidly changing information landscape. The proliferation of social media, news outlets and online platforms has created a vast pool of data that can be critical for intelligence gathering and technology. Rasmussen said that the guidance reflects the changing technology and data landscape.

“Data volume is always going to be increasing,” said Rasmussen. “On the technical side, what I see moving out on the artificial intelligence side, is a focus more on consuming and doing analytics with the AI, rather than back office automation.”

Organizations need to use AI judiciously and use human analysis in concert with technology, Rasmussen added.

“You just can’t outsource this out to a machine. There have to be appropriate things done on the human side, as well,” said Rasmussen, “As artificial intelligence evolves, if you are consuming answers or consuming more inferences or judgments or scores. [The guidance allows the IC] to be able to cite those and then to cite how they were determined with the right specs underneath them.”

The guidance, ultimately, gives analysts across domains and organizations a better understanding of how OSINT is being gathered, analyzed and acted upon.

“That’s really what this is about,” said Barrett. “It’s about establishing some trade craft.”