Enhancing Open-Source Intelligence: Introducing the Functional Intelligence Tool (FINT)

With an increasing number of protests involving a more diverse group of people, the Dutch Police have to analyse a large number of messages posted on social media platforms, which becomes increasingly difficult to scrutinise for the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) analysts of the Dutch Police. This is not only because of the increased volumes and velocity at which messages are sent, but also due to the diversity of language usage and the amount of bias that hides the crucial information. To shed light on visualising social media posts, this study combines user-centric design with ecological interface design principles to create the Functional Intelligence Tool (FINT). This tool is tested on twenty participants, of whom four OSINT analysts of the Dutch Police. The tool is reported to be consistent, well-integrated and easy to learn, even for participants without a background in OSINT analysis.