Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is an investigative methodology that gathers data from open sources, such as social media, search engines, and public records, and uses this to produce insights about classified or proprietary information. OSINT has been observed in use under a range of circumstances and for various purposes, including tracking people via open-source records and digital footprint accumulation, triangulating public records to infer classified information about government officials, tracking troop movements in war-time and exposing human rights violations.