Pipl Partner Spotlight: Chris Poulter of OSINT Combine

Chris Poulter is the founder and CEO of OSINT Combine, an Australian company that offers training, consulting, and software solutions designed to help organizations develop open-source intelligence capabilities.

OSINT Combine serves professionals working in national security, law enforcement, corporate security, counter human-trafficking, counter terrorism, and personal security, helping them achieve their strategic, operational, and tactical objectives.

OSINT, or open-source intelligence, is information that’s publicly available – usually online – that may or may not be organized or easy to find. Chris and his team help their clients make the best possible use of OSINT data by providing tools to aid in its collection and teaching skills that help them make effective use of the information they gather, from culling irrelevant information to best practices for sharing insights with members of their teams.

Chris is former active Australian military, and although the courses and products he offers have been developed in conjunction with experts in military, special ops, and law enforcement roles, Chris’ OSINT expertise wasn’t the result of his military training. He’s self-taught, and his proficiency in the collection and application of OSINT comes as a result of his own interest in the subject.

“Intelligence no longer needs to be secret to be valuable,” says Poulter. “OSINT plays an important role in security operations & investigations due to the information society we live in, and working with good partners is critical to staying ahead of threats and adversaries.”

OSINT provides corporate clients a means of gauging the risks that could be encountered when visiting an unfamiliar region: Are there any active political or religious conflicts that may increase the chance of being caught in the middle of a violent altercation? What opinions does the population hold regarding the visitor’s country or organization? What topics are trending on local social media channels? This knowledge is essential for maintaining safety while traveling.

For Chris’ law-enforcement and government clients, OSINT can offer insights that would be impossible to gain in any other way. The comments left on social media and chat forums, lists of followers and friends, liked items, and online associations with special interest groups can paint an accurate and real time picture of a suspect’s motivations and reveal clues as to who they might be collaborating with.

Visitors to OSINT Combine will find a collection of online resources that are free to use. A large array of tools gives investigators the means to collect a wide variety of up-to-date information: what locals are searching for online, trending social media topics by region, health concerns, human-trafficking risks, and news analysis that ranges from global to hyperlocal civilian reporting. Visualization tools consume information from spreadsheets, allowing the user to easily view connections between people, places, and events.

To aid in the collection of open-source data, Chris and the crew at OSINT Combine have created a proprietary tool, NexusXplore, that gathers data from multiple sources, including Pipl API. This enables his clients to spend less time collecting data and more time focused on interpreting what they’ve found.

In Chris’ opinion, the collection of open-source data is the easy part. Sifting through information, analyzing it, and effectively communicating any insights gained is another matter. That’s why the primary focus of OSINT Combine’s courses is technique: teaching clients solid, repeatable methods for using OSINT to accomplish their goals.

When asked about one of his latest projects, an analysis of the social-media platform migration of participants in January 6th, 2021 violence in Washington D.C., Chris reiterated the importance of technique over tools:

“Investigators need to stay abreast of where people are going. They also need to have the skills to pull the platforms apart when tools are not available. Analytical rigor and investigative know- how are all-important. Use tools for scale and efficiency, but don’t rely on them: use your training and knowledge of effective processes.”

Chris is the Founder & CEO of OSINT Combine who are leaders in open-source intelligence training & software with support to counter-human trafficking, counter-terrorism, law enforcement & other strategically important efforts around the world. He has an extensive background working in military and law enforcement environments domestically & overseas, with proven outcomes in developing open-source intelligence capability to multi-national teams that service strategic and operational objectives where the cyber, human and physical terrain overlap. Additionally, he is the creator of NexusXplore, a leading OSINT software platform that is trusted globally in supporting complex mission sets in the open-source environment.