Protecting Traveling Employees with OSINT: A Guide to Travel Risk Mitigation

For many modern, global businesses, corporate travel is an essential part of their operations. However, sending employees abroad also exposes organizations to a wide range of risks, from petty crime to political unrest. Duty of care obligations require companies to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety and well-being of their traveling workforce. This is where open-source intelligence comes into play, helping security teams to identify, assess, and mitigate travel-related threats. By leveraging publicly available information, OSINT practitioners can manage risks, make informed decisions, and respond effectively to emergencies, safeguarding their organization's most valuable asset: its people.

The Challenges of Travel Risk Management

Managing travel risks can be a complex undertaking that involves multiple informational and logistical hurdles. Some key challenges include:

1. Rapidly Emerging Threats: From terrorist attacks to natural disasters, the nature and severity of travel risks can change rapidly, requiring continuous scanning and assessment.
2. Information Overload: The sheer volume of publicly available information can overwhelm traditional risk management approaches, making identifying and prioritizing relevant threats difficult.
3. Resource Constraints: Many security teams face limited budgets and staffing, hindering their ability to conduct thorough risk assessments and provide comprehensive support to employees on the move.
4. Unexpected Emergencies: In the event of an emergency, the best-laid plans often fall apart. Travelers can find themselves in situations they never anticipated, facing risks they weren't prepared for, and without real-time information, adapting is difficult.

How OSINT Enhances Travel Risk Mitigation

Automated OSINT tools like Skopenow’s Grid offer a scalable and cost-effective solution to these challenges, empowering security teams to:

1. Detect Emerging Threats 

By continuously scanning sources for publicly available content like news articles and social media, OSINT tools can quickly flag potential emerging risks in travelers' destinations. This real-time situational awareness allows security teams to proactively adjust itineraries, issue alerts, and take additional precautions as needed.

2. Assess Location-Specific Risks

OSINT can provide valuable context about the security environment in specific cities, neighborhoods, or even individual landmarks. By analyzing crime data, public safety bulletins, and user-generated content, teams can develop granular risk profiles to inform travel policies and guide employees' on-the-ground decisions.

3. Investigate Incidents and Provide Support 

When an emergency occurs, OSINT can help support affected travelers by assessing the circumstances of their situation and coordinating an appropriate response. By reviewing local news, social media activity, and public records, security teams can quickly gather critical information to support employees in distress and liaise with relevant authorities or assistance providers.

4. Enhance Traveler Awareness

OSINT-derived insights can also be used to support educating employees about the risks they may face and equip them with practical advice for staying safe. By incorporating destination-specific intelligence into pre-travel briefings and training materials, organizations can foster a culture of situational awareness and shared responsibility for risk management.

Integrating Automated OSINT into Travel Risk Management

To effectively leverage OSINT for travel risk mitigation, security teams should consider the following best practices:

1. Leverage Automation

Given the vast amount of publicly available data, manual OSINT collection is neither efficient nor scalable. Automated tools like Skopenow's Grid can continuously scan thousands of sources, like social media, satellite imagery, news, and more, flagging relevant threats and risks for further review by analysts.

2. Prioritize Actionable Intelligence

Not all OSINT is created equal. Focus on collecting and analyzing relevant and timely information that directly impacts travelers' safety and can inform specific actions. When a possible threat actor is identified, Skopenow's Workbench enables investigators to easily collect and process relevant information relating to them from across the internet and build reports to support decision-making. 

3. Integrate with Existing Systems

To maximize its impact, OSINT should be integrated with an organization's broader travel risk management framework. This may involve feeding internet intelligence into risk assessment tools or emergency communication platforms.

4. Collaborate with Key Stakeholders

Effective travel risk management always requires close collaboration between security, HR, legal, and senior leadership. Security teams may also need to coordinate with local police departments and other relevant authorities, such as embassies in key travel destinations, before incidents occur. Regularly share OSINT-derived insights with these stakeholders to ensure a robust and proactive approach to risk mitigation.

As global business travel continues to rebound in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations must remain vigilant in protecting their employees from evolving threats. By harnessing the power of OSINT, security teams can enhance their situational awareness, make data-driven decisions, and provide timely support to travelers in need. 

Skopenow's AI-powered platform offers a comprehensive solution for automating collection and analysis to support OSINT workflows, helping organizations fulfill their duty of care obligations and keep their travelers safe in an ever-changing world.

Join over 1,500 organizations—including 20% of the Fortune 500, large government agencies, and more—that rely on Skopenow's platform to automatically collect and process relevant publicly available information and make better decisions. Learn more and schedule a personalized demo today at www.skopenow.com/try.