Using open-source intelligence (OSINT) to anticipate social unrest and activism around major events is now a core part of digital security planning. With civil unrest activity rising and coordination increasingly digital, security teams that ignore OSINT are simply planning blind.
Social unrest has become a pervasive, constant, global, and local phenomenon. For any organization responsible for hosting, sponsoring, or providing security for a major public event, such as corporate annual meetings, international summits, or large-scale sporting and entertainment spectacles, adopting an anticipatory, threat-informed stance is the most essential strategic approach.
The volume and geographical spread of organized unrest and demonstrations have reached unprecedented levels, confirming their permanent status in the risk matrix. Data compiled by the Crowd Counting Consortium’s U.S. unrest dataset illustrates the scale of contemporary mobilization vividly. Covering activity since the beginning of 2017, the dataset had swelled to nearly 190,000 recorded social unrest events, or “event days,” by mid‑2024. This activity is not confined to major metropolitan areas. It spans thousands of distinct cities and towns across all 50 states and several U.S. territories, demonstrating a deeply decentralized and widespread capacity for mobilization.
While the vast majority of social unrest remains peaceful and orderly, the environment surrounding them has demonstrably hardened. Analysis from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) indicates that counter‑demonstrations (events organized specifically to oppose the initial demonstration) have increased by an average of approximately 33 percent. This rise in oppositional gatherings significantly raises the risk profile of any environment, making physical confrontations, escalations, and disruptions far more likely, and demanding a higher level of preparation from security personnel.
This phenomenon is not unique to democratic states, proving its global pervasiveness. The Carnegie Endowment’s Global Protest Tracker routinely monitors and lists dozens of significant, active movements operating at any given time. Crucially, this includes robust movements in countries explicitly categorized as “not free,” where the risk of state intervention and violent repression adds another layer of complexity for international organizations and traveling personnel.
These compelling statistics mandate a fundamental shift in planning philosophy for corporate security and risk management leaders. Security protocols, resource allocation, intelligence gathering, and operational planning must proceed from the assumption that activist activity will occur. This shift requires integrating Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) methodologies specifically designed to anticipate mobilization into the core of pre-event security assessments to ensure organizational safety, business continuity, and brand reputation protection.
Modern organizing happens in the open on social platforms, event pages, encrypted apps with public channels, and niche forums, and OSINT turns that digital exhaust into early warning.
OSINT adds value across the full event lifecycle, from early planning through to post‑event debrief. Weeks or even months before an event, teams can review past incidents and current online ecosystems to identify likely activist themes, key groups, and potential gathering points, then integrate those insights into security design and stakeholder briefings.
During the event, live monitoring of social channels, open messaging groups, and local news helps reveal changes in crowd size, route shifts, or calls for escalation in near real time, enabling dynamic adjustments to staffing, perimeter control, and VIP movements. Afterward, post‑event OSINT supports a structured review of what worked, what was missed, and how narratives about the event are evolving, which is especially critical when reputational risk is tied to how displays of civil unrest were managed.
The deployment of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques for monitoring potential social unrest and activism associated with major events presents a complex challenge at the nexus of corporate or public safety, individual privacy, and fundamental civil liberties. Mishandling this intelligence can lead to catastrophic reputational damage, eroding public and employee trust far more quickly and completely than the occurrence of a physical security incident itself. Therefore, a rigorous commitment to ethical, compliant, and proportionate use is paramount.
As Harry Kemsley, OBE, President of National Security and Government at Janes, once explained, the intelligence community must effectively harness open-source information to maintain relevance, but it must do so in ways that uphold democratic norms, not erode them. For private organizations, the same principle applies to using insight, and not surveillance, as the goal with OSINT.
Here’s a quick OSINT program checklist to get you going. It covers the core building blocks needed to turn open‑source signals into practical, event-ready intelligence for your team. The focus is on capturing the right data, interpreting it in context, and pushing only the most relevant insights to decision‑makers.
Think of it as a minimum viable framework you can adapt to your organization’s risk profile, tooling, and maturity level.