Intelligence for sale

Like private military contractors and security companies (PMCSCs), the concept of private intelligence hubs and information centres (PIHICs) may become a global reality and a million-dollar industry in future. The Intelligence assets have evolved through the historical development of intelligence collection.

These assets have changed the dynamics of intelligence collection mechanism. The human population presents a sea of opportunities for information gathering. The modern gadgetries have expanded these opportunities and presented new horizons of intelligence collection. The probability that an ordinary person, knowingly or unknowingly, becomes an intelligence asset and starts contributing to the intelligence collection has been increasing with each passing day. Every word or action is recorded and stored, thus generating chance of establishing private intelligence storages and information centres. Though there are restrictions on official intelligence sharing, the private intelligence depots provide a host of opportunities of independent intelligence structures where intelligence, particular or general, is for sale. The buyer may pay the desired amount, in digital mode of currency exchange or barter trade or otherwise, and obtains the requisite information. The seller, as a result of it, gets a hefty sum in his or her kitty. An official agency or its elements may also approach such a private intelligence repository to retrieve an intelligence on a particular issue. For example, a private intelligence warehouse can be contacted by intelligence agencies of regional countries to get information about the ground situation in a conflict zone, especially an area under control of hostile forces or actors. Such an intelligence consists of a range of information pertaining to an individual, a group, an organisation or a general population and area knowledge.

The private intelligence depositories, at an advanced stage, may also provide live streaming of a target on the request of a client. This provides myriad opportunities of intelligence sale with a wide spectrum of clients. A customer may be interested in location verification of an individual or his identity through tangible and practical information collection. Similarly, information on groups, militant or other, may be obtained through private sources and supplied to the clients on demand. Such intelligence may include their movement routes, attack patterns, group members, group elements, types of weapons used and other related information. This may result into a highly wired warfare wherein small weaponised drones are deployed to attack the target position on the basis of intelligence received from the private intelligence sources.

The private intelligence hubs are an easy and sophisticated way of compromising security of a target country and making its essential facilities information prone to public contributions. The electronic grid can trace the movements, messages and mind maps of individuals, groups or community members. The grid is the electronic network of mobile communication statistics in the form of visual graphics which is updated regularly and preferably every day. The routine assessment, on the basis of the grid analysis, makes it easy for the evaluators to trace the everyday activities of the target. Any deviation in the daily routine can raise minor or major suspicions which can be easily verified through human intelligence directly or indirectly. Expand this digital grid from an individual to groups or community members and one gets an electronic picture of daily routines of hundreds and millions of individuals living in a geographical dispensation. If this routine pertains to the decision-makers, politicians, security advisers and policy formulators of a country then a predictive analysis can easily be carried out as to how the government, democratic or otherwise, may fare on a particular issue.

The private intelligence storages may not be employed for military actions only but can also be expanded over a wide spectrum of utility. It includes information on refugees, disease eruption, border management and its control. It may include intelligence on human smuggling and narco-trafficking to indicate network of individuals involved in it. The law enforcement agencies and police can also benefit from it immensely by putting a request to these centres for ascertaining the presence of a wanted person in a remote area or alien land to conduct a proper operation for the arrest of the target.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2022.

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