OSINT in criminal proceedings: current issues of foreign legal doctrine

Abstract

The article examines the legal nature of open-source intelligence (OSINT) in criminal procedure and the problem of the admissibility of materials obtained in this way as evidence in foreign legal doctrine. The relevance of the topic stems from the fact that social media and internet communication have become a source that, according to certain estimates, accounts for up to 80-90 percent of all intelligence activity carried out by Western law enforcement and intelligence agencies, while existing procedural codes largely lack specific regulation for the collection, fixation, and verification of such information. The author proceeds from the premise that OSINT requires differentiation on at least two levels – as a tool of operational orientation (intelligence) and as a source for building an evidentiary basis (evidence) – since these two categories of material are subject to fundamentally different standards of legal assessment. The article analyzes theoretical approaches to distinguishing the concepts of «information», «intelligence data», and «evidence» in the context of materials obtained from open sources, as well as methodologies proposed in foreign doctrine for applying digital forensics standards to open-source investigations. Technological solutions based on blockchain, designed to ensure the integrity, authenticity, and verifiability of the provenance of images and video materials obtained from social media, are examined. The article further explores the practice of the International Criminal Court regarding the use of open sources in the investigation of international crimes, as well as the governance, ethical, legal, and social implications (GELSI) arising from the use of artificial intelligence technologies for the automated analysis of OSINT materials. It is concluded that existing international digital forensics standards can and should be adapted to the specificity of open sources, but that this adaptation requires the development of a unified methodology for metadata fixation, chain of custody, and independent verification of material provenance. The article proposes a set of criteria for distinguishing the lawful from the unlawful use of OSINT materials as evidence in criminal proceedings.