Social Media and Public Security

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Turning Social Media into Actionable Intelligence

Social Media, including online communities, Twitter, blogs and messaging services, has become central to everyday life. It is also used to influence opinion and to motivate either targeted groups or the public at large.

Its potential extends into coordinating actions including organised and opportunistic crime, or political or terrorist activity. An increasing number of criminal activities, riots even revolutions and terrorist events have involved Social Media which often itself influences future turns of events.

Social Media is also difficult to restrict and control. Increasingly those responsible for security recognise the need and the opportunity to use these services as a source of valuable intelligence and sometimes to use the same media to respond.

The Challenges of Volume, Complexity and Speed

Intelligence organisations need to interpret large volumes of information very quickly to identify the individuals, the social media networks and the events that they should be responding to. The ability to predict and if possible pre-empt potential threats would be even more valuable.

The challenge is increased by the informal and chatty nature of much social media and the fact that many users will try to hide their tracks. This requires a sophisticated solution based on experience and understanding of how SocialMedia operates and impacts on the real world.

The SAS Approach to Social Media in the Public Security Arena

SAS has used its experience both of Social Media Analytics on the one hand, and of providing solutions for Public Security services on the other to produce a solution that turns Social Media into invaluable intelligence.

This enables you to process huge volumes of social media data in real time. It builds up a picture of individuals, networks, events and themes of discussion.

Beyond monitoring the issues that you have identified, the solution can suggest additional themes and subjects that may represent potential threats which you can then investigate further, while analysis of changes in sentiment can help you to anticipate possible future activity.

The solution forms part of the SAS Public Security Framework, which enables you to combine intelligence from Social Media with insights from other sources to gain a full and balanced picture of the overall security threat.

The intelligence can then be disseminated to the key decision-makers, when they need it, in the form that they require.

All this enables you not just to respond to events more quickly and effectively, but to predict and pre-empt major threats, resulting in a major and sustainable improvement in public security.

Key Benefits

The SAS social media solution for Public Security enables you:

• Process and interpret large volumes of social media text in real time, freeing up human resources for more in-depth intelligence work
• Get an accurate single view of individuals, what they are saying, about what, what networks they belong to and how influential they are within these
• Integrate this information with intelligence form other sources to get a balanced overall view of the security situation

The WhitePaper “Using Intelligence from Social Media to Combat Security Threats” explores these challenges and opportunities in more detail. Download our Social Media & Public Security Whitepaper.