Glossary term
HUMINT (human intelligence)
Definition
Information collected through direct human interaction: structured interviews, participant observation, and trusted source networks. In professional practice HUMINT is lawful and voluntary, handled discreetly, and corroborated against open sources and records before it becomes an assessment — it rarely stands alone.
In practice
HUMINT reaches what open sources cannot: intent, context, and the things people simply never write down. Its weakness is the mirror image — a single human account is unverified until it survives contact with records and other sources.
Commercial HUMINT is not the covert world of state agencies. It is voluntary, non-coercive, and often unspectacular: a prepared conversation with someone who knows a market can outperform weeks of scraping.
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