Mis and disinformation considerations for OSINT

Sean Corbett retired from the Royal Air Force in September 2018 after a 30-year career as a professional intelligence officer, where he reached the pinnacle of his profession. He then established a Defence, Security and Intelligence Directorate within a 'new space' geospatial intelligence company, Earth-i, where he advanced innovative Al applications to earth observation data in support of the defence and security sector, and instigated the concept of 'intelligence as a service', leveraging a wide spectrum of publicly available information to answer challenging questions for the community. In October 2019, he set up his own business as a consultant specialising in the provision of strategic advice, commercial intelligence, the space sector, and the optimisation of organisational leadership and change management.

Amil started his career as a Reuters foreign correspondent followed by a stint as a BBC investigations reporter. Working in the early 2000s and having studied Arabic and Farsi, he covered breaking news in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine/Israel while also conducting investigations and embeds with militias in Darfur, Chad, Libya etc. Sensing that the information landscape was changing, Amil left journalism and started consulting for government, political groups and civil society organisations. In the aftermath of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Amil noticed that the online space was being manipulated not just by false information but by thousands of coordinated fake accounts. As most of the attention was being devoted to the nature of the false information and not its dissemination, Amil set about investigating the misuse of social media platforms and wrote one of the first studies for the UK cabinet office on technical manipulation. After a couple of years at Chatham House, Amil set up Valent after realising that the problem was only going to grow and few organisations maintained the mix of skills - social media strategists, political analysts and data engineers - needed to address the threat it posed.