The intelligence landscape evolves with the spread of electronic communications and networks, surveillance technologies, abundance of open source data, and private actors undertaking intelligence activities.
The activities of intelligence agencies and other actors needs to be mandated by law, with the necessary restrictions on the use of the data collected and conditions regarding governance and oversight by internal and external bodies, in compliance with human rights norms.
Intelligence gathering is an activity of all times. Everybody collects information: the grocery shop owner, the company CEO, donor organizations, marketing organizations, media, universities and research organisations, and states. The assessment of the collected intelligence 1 is the development of forecasts of behavior or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organisation, based on a wide range of available information sources, both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership in order to inform decision making. An assessment may be carried out on behalf of a state or a military or commercial organisation, with a range of sources of information available to each.
Read the article in Information & Security: An International Journal