Understanding and mitigating heuristics or mental shortcuts in OSINT Investigations, 8 March 2027
Our exclusive workshop examines the challenges and pitfalls that investigators and analysts face when they conduct open-source investigations online.
OSINT heuristics refer to the mental shortcuts, rules of thumb, and practical frameworks that open-source intelligence analysts use to quickly sort, filter, and make sense of massive volumes of publicly available information.
Because OSINT involves combing through an overwhelming ‘haystack’ of data, ranging from social media and public forums to satellite imagery and corporate registries, analysts and investigators cannot investigate every single lead exhaustively.
Instead, they rely on heuristics to make educated guesses and prioritise the most viable paths which could be problematic.
Our workshop provides investigators and analysts with a structured, defensible way to judge what information to trust online, at the speed modern incidents demand. It combines research on misinformation and decision-making with a practical framework of ten heuristics, then tests it on real UK policing cases. No specialist tools are needed.
The workshop will include:
Session One: Information disorder. We start with why the open-source environment is so hostile to the truth: the volume, velocity and volatility of online information.
Using Wardle and Derakhshan’s work, participants learn to classify what they are looking at as misinformation, disinformation or malinformation, and to recognise the seven types of false or misleading content.
We also cover how coordination and narrative laundering work, and finish with a classification exercise on realistic examples.
Session Two: The OSINT Heuristics Framework. Participants learn ten fast, structured checks across five areas: source, content, context, cross-verification and adversarial awareness.
Each comes with practical cues, a worked example and a known failure mode. We cover how to combine the checks, why to try to disprove a claim before confirming it, how to use
AI tools safely as leads rather than verdicts, and how to state confidence and gaps clearly. The session ends with a hands-on triage card exercise.
Session Three: In practice. The framework is applied to three UK cases:
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Southport (2024): how a false claim filled an information vacuum.
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Huntingdon (2025): a fabricated image that AI tools wrongly judged genuine.
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Eastney (2026): how genuine data was used to mobilise a crowd and to target responders. This covers public order powers, evidence, lawful monitoring and protecting staff and partners.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the workshop, delegates will be able to:
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Classify a problematic item as mis-, dis- or malinformation, and explain why intent is hard to establish in real time.
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Triage an item in minutes using ten heuristics, and record their reasoning.
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Recognise where each heuristic is likely to mislead them, and guard against bias.
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Write a short assessment stating judgement, confidence and gaps.
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Apply the approach to public order, communications and intelligence problems, within lawful and proportionate limits.
Our expert
Chris Proops is an experience open source and intelligence expert with 22 years Military Intelligence experience, with deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo and West Africa. He also served for eight years in the National Crime Agency as in investigator.
He is a member of the Global Internet Forum for Counter Terrorism's Countering the Financing of Terrorism Online's working group, has been cited by BBC Verify, Wired and Vice, and has awards including a Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service and a Commendation from the Old Bailey. He is currently Head of Intelligence at Blackdot Solutions.
Held online via Teams
Certificates of CPD available
HOW TO BOOK
Cost: £219 + VAT (GBP) per delegate per workshop (LEA and Government Agency rate). £275 + VAT (Industry rate), per delegate
Group bookings: We offer various discounts for group bookings depending on numbers, please contact us for details.
Booking: Please send the delegates name(s), email address(es) and purchase order (made out to The Investigator) to booking@the-investigator.co.uk or telephone +44(0)844 660 8707 for further information.
Payment can be made by PayPal/debit/credit card. The meeting link will be sent out 7 days before the event.