OPEN

Last week at Local Social Summit I talked about some of the issues around location and privacy. Especially problematic is people’s inadvertent tagging of their photos with location information – something potentially of interest to crooks, stalkers and others you might not want to know everything about you.

Open-source spying is a term which has been around for a while, reflecting the fact that when it comes to gathering information, the web is often as good a place as going into the field. In-Q-Tel’s investments reflect a justified fascination with the social web by intelligence agencies.

Well it turns out the CIA is also interested in this kind of information. In a post about the CIA’s Silicon Valley VC firm, In-Q-Tel, the Not So Private Parts blog on Forbes found the firm…

…likes companies coming up with better ways to mine social networking sites and geospatial location data. One of its investments, Geosemble, a private spin-off from USC, estimates that “80% of online content has location information.”

80%? Wow.

“Our mission is to shine a torchlight on geographic unknowns and help organizations neutralize threats and capitalize on opportunities in their areas of geographic interest,” says its website. Another of IQT’s geospatial investments, FortiusOne, promises instant maps based on Tweets and photo uploads, for mapping election-day threats in Afghanistan, for example.

The idealist in me is attracted to the data mining stories of humanitarian efforts of platforms like Ushahidi, but we should remember that governments and their agencies are interested in our geo-location information as well.

Bonus link : : Really interesting presentation from FortiusOne on analysing geo-data for business.