27 March 2025

How OSINT could play a role in tackling knife crime

By Dave Sampson, Consultant, Altia

While official police statistics* show knife crime isn’t getting worse across Australia concern and focus is on the rise after a number of high profile cases. No one can fail to be affected by the devastation caused by this particular type of crime especially given the proportion involved who are children and young adults. 2023 data indicated a 21% rise in knife-related incidents among youths aged 10 to 21**. Knives were also the most common weapon used in homicides in Australia from 2010 to 2023*.

A number of legislative changes have been made to tackle knife crime. Just in the last few weeks the Australian Federal Police (AFP) launched a campaign targeting credit-card knives and Victoria’s premier announced the state ban on machetes.

In the UK, as well as banning specific types of knives, the government has also announced measures to make it harder to sell and buy knives online with a commitment to create a new policing unit to monitor the sale of weapons online. Admittedly, in contrast to Australia, knife crime in the UK is on the rise but learning from how accessibility to weapons has evolved in the UK through online marketplaces, may offer up an additional pre-emptive approach of tacking online sales for forces.

OSINT (open-source intelligence) tools and technology could be critical to any force keen to keep an eye on what weapons could be making their way into their community – from who and into who’s hands.

OSINT can include data from the surface, deep and dark web, including public records, news, social media platforms, websites, copy, images and videos. Using specialist technology means that it can be fast to identify threat and lines of investigation from vast quantities of data. It makes it possible to automate the scanning of forums, market places and encrypted messaging platforms and can track illicit transactions and new marketplace listings. However, one of the downsides of these tools is that they can be complicated to use, requiring the expertise of a specialist team which can cause bottlenecks and delays. In the fast-moving online marketplace, this is far from ideal.

The features forces need from OSINT tools are:

• A tool that is easy-to-use and enables investigators to self-serve
• Full audit trail capture, to ensure any information used as evidence is admissible
• A perpetual search capability to enable proactive monitoring of specific URLs and key words
• Ability to integrate data provided by the public, which is easy to use by citizens and offers full anonymity
• An integration with case management to streamline the production of court-ready documents
• Compliance with data capture and retention regulations

Knife crime is a complex societal issue and a much wider challenge than just the approach to policing or legislation. However, technology can play a role in making police more efficient and effective in monitoring the threat and gathering the evidence needed to support prosecutions. It’s one step forward towards our shared goal of making our communities safer.

Sources:
* Australian Bureau of Statistics
** abc.net.au