From the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency:
Imagine you’re a CIA officer working overseas in an authoritarian country. You used to be able to stay under the radar of the local security services by meeting with your contacts in discrete locations. But lately, it’s becoming harder and harder to maintain that secrecy. Now there are hundreds of devices that know where you are every time you step outside. There are cameras on every street corner connected to the foreign government’s facial recognition software.
Even if you’re using the most sophisticated tradecraft, this world of ubiquitous surveillance and digital tracking can still present tremendous threats to you and, more importantly, your sources—the very people you’ve promised to keep safe as they risk their lives to provide critical information to the U.S. Government. Yet, the intelligence you and your sources provide is combined with vast amounts of unclassified, open source data back at Langley. What normally would have taken weeks or even months to triage can now be analyzed in a fraction of the time, because your colleagues now utilize the latest in data science and AI technologies to help sort and make sense of all the information.
This is the challenge, and promise, of digital technology. It can both help and hinder CIA’s mission, because emerging technologies are at once both a strength and a vulnerability. The same tools that have changed our everyday lives are also changing how CIA collects and protects intelligence. Digital technology is disrupting the world of spycraft.
On the Cutting Edge of Technological Innovation
CIA created the Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) in 2015 in response to our growing need to understand, utilize, and respond to emerging digital technologies. DDI brought together the Agency’s missions of cyber collection and security, open-source intelligence, data science, information technology, and so much more—basically the 1s and 0s of our mission. These technologies are increasingly essential for CIA’s success in a world of ubiquitous sensing, growing cyber threats, and the exponential increase in data.
While we can’t share too many details on our latest technological developments, we are constantly innovating and looking at how we can utilize modern technologies in a new light.
Some of CIA’s most pressing challenges—seemingly limitless sources of disinformation, the rise of authoritarian regimes, and dangerous conflicts—all share a common thread: the use of digital technology to expand the reach and impact of these activities.
Emerging technologies also provide CIA with incredible opportunities. For instance, Artificial Intelligence can help officers make sense of a tsunami of information—triaging data faster than any human could alone, while gleaning greater insights from a mixture of open source (OSINT) and clandestine intelligence collection.
Let’s explore some of the exciting challenges inherent in building a new digital ecosystem in what might be the most unique working environment in the world....
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