training
OSINT training
Modular, intelligence-grade OSINT training for analysts, investigators, and operational teams. Programmes are tailored to your mandate and delivered by practitioners — not generic instructors.
Curriculum last reviewed:
Who it's for
Built for teams who turn open data into decisions.
- Law enforcement
- Intelligence analysts
- Cybersecurity professionals
- Journalists & researchers
- Corporate security
- Government agencies
Training tracks
OSINT training tracks: foundations, disinformation, dark web, generative AI.
Tracks can be combined, sequenced, or delivered as a single tailored curriculum — 22 modules across four tracks. Every module is scoped to lawful, defensible tradecraft. Teams that want the work delivered rather than taught can use our OSINT intelligence services; investigators who want tooling can pair training with Nexus, our AI OSINT platform.
Custom OSINT training
A modular foundation programme tailored to your team's mandate, tooling, and operational context.
Analysts leave able to run an open-source investigation end to end: scoping the requirement against the intelligence cycle, protecting their own attribution and operational security, pivoting across images, usernames, and email identifiers, mapping social networks, geolocating imagery, monitoring areas of interest, and working corporate records — through to deep- and dark-web collection on a defensible footing.
- Introduction to OSINT and the intelligence cycle
- Online attribution and operational security
- Advanced search: images, usernames, emails
- Social media intelligence and network analysis
- Image and geolocation analysis
- Area monitoring and risk assessment
- Corporate intelligence and business records
- Comprehensive investigations, deep & dark web
Disinformation investigation with OSINT
Practical skills for collecting, analysing, and countering disinformation, fake news, and coordinated manipulation.
Participants learn to recognise the tactics of state and non-state influence operations — bots, deepfakes, coordinated amplification — and to collect, classify, and visualise the networks behind them, closing with source verification and credibility assessment so findings withstand scrutiny.
- Foundations of disinformation and influence operations
- Tactics of state and non-state actors, bots and deepfakes
- Social media analysis: reach, patterns, amplification
- Open-source data collection and classification
- Visualising disinformation networks and campaigns
- Source verification and credibility assessment
Dark web investigation with OSINT
Methodical training on Tor, I2P, Freenet, and Lokinet for investigators working illicit markets, forums, and services.
A methodical pathway through the dark and deep net: how Tor, I2P, Freenet, and Lokinet differ, how to collect lawfully and verifiably, how to trace cryptocurrency flows and transactions, and how to investigate markets, forums, and illicit services without compromising the case or the investigator.
- Foundations of dark and deep net architectures
- Lawful data collection and verification
- Cryptocurrency tracing and transaction analysis
- Investigating markets, forums, and illicit services
Generative AI for OSINT
How generative AI accelerates the intelligence cycle — and where its limits, risks, and ethical boundaries sit.
A clear-eyed treatment of what generative AI genuinely accelerates across the intelligence cycle, how modern AI systems work, practical techniques for AI-assisted collection — and the limitations, ethical, and legal considerations every unit must respect before putting AI into casework.
- How generative AI supports the intelligence cycle
- Foundations of modern AI systems
- Practical techniques for AI-assisted collection
- Limitations, ethical, and legal considerations
For public institutions
OSINT training for law enforcement and government teams.
Public institutions are a core audience for this programme. Scenarios are calibrated to real casework, every module is scoped to lawful, defensible tradecraft, and the curriculum is delivered from the EU with GDPR-aware collection practice — and the obligations arriving with the EU AI Act — in view. Instructors bring criminal-police and Europol casework experience to the room. See how the same tradecraft supports live operations in our law-enforcement use case.
Delivery formats
Delivery formats: instructor-led and online OSINT courses.
Instructor-led
Delivered in-person or virtually by experienced practitioners. Scenarios and datasets calibrated to your operational environment.
Online OSINT course, self-paced
Structured modules accessible through our Online Academy, suitable for distributed teams and continuous skills development.
How a programme is built
From mandate to operational tradecraft.
Step 1
Scope & objectives
We define learning outcomes, audience seniority, lawful boundaries, and operational context before any module is selected.
Step 2
Module selection
Modules are combined and adapted into a coherent curriculum sized to your time, tooling, and mission profile.
Step 3
Delivery
Hands-on sessions with realistic scenarios, datasets, and tradecraft drills — delivered in-person, virtually, or self-paced.
Step 4
Post-training support
Reference materials, optional refreshers, and follow-on advisory to embed tradecraft into day-to-day operations.
Answers
Frequently asked questions.
Next Sight's OSINT training is built for law enforcement, intelligence analysts, cybersecurity professionals, journalists and researchers, corporate security teams, and government agencies. Programmes are tailored to the team's mandate and delivered by practitioners.
Four modular tracks totalling 22 modules: custom OSINT foundations (8 modules — advanced search, social media intelligence, image and geolocation analysis, deep and dark web), disinformation investigation (6 modules), dark web investigation (4 modules — Tor, I2P, cryptocurrency tracing), and generative AI for OSINT (4 modules). Tracks combine into a single tailored curriculum, and every module is scoped to lawful, defensible tradecraft.
Two formats: instructor-led sessions — in person or virtual — with scenarios and datasets calibrated to your operational environment, and structured self-paced modules through Next Sight's Online Academy for distributed teams and continuous skills development.
Yes. Law enforcement and government agencies are a core audience: scenarios are calibrated to casework, every module is scoped to lawful, defensible tradecraft, and the programme is delivered by practitioners with criminal-police and Europol casework experience.
Yes. The same modular curriculum is available as a structured, self-paced online OSINT course through Next Sight's Online Academy, suitable for distributed teams and continuous skills development alongside instructor-led delivery.
Discuss a training requirement.
Share your team's mandate and operational context. We will propose a tailored OSINT curriculum and delivery plan.