Version 1.0 · Adopted 2025
Code of Conduct
A standard for organisations as much as for individual practitioners. Signing is free, and every signatory is named on the list below.
This Code of Conduct sets out a body of principles developed through a multi-stakeholder process with Crown Dependencies, UK and EU government representatives, journalists, academics, NGOs, businesses and technologists. It exists to improve accountability for practitioners operating in the islands and beyond, and to provide an ethical standard against which organisations can be judged.
Open-source intelligence is the targeted analysis of data accessible to anyone, regardless of geography or background, with relatively minimal educational, technical or financial resources. That accessibility is what makes it valuable, and it is also why the work needs a standard. There is no licence to practise and no professional body to answer to.
The principles
By agreeing to this Code, individuals, businesses, charities and government organisations commit to the following:
- I/we shall not engage in nor contribute to criminal activity, in opposition to both the letter and the spirit of domestic and international law.
- I/we undertake to use all reasonable means to ensure OSINT is directed, collected, processed, analysed and disseminated by means that are justified, authorised, proportionate, auditable and necessary.
- I/we shall conform to the spirit of international humanitarian law — the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the Charter of the United Nations — in the pursuit and execution of OSINT.
- I/we shall direct, collect, process, analyse and disseminate OSINT in accordance with applicable laws.
What signing means
Signatories, whether members or partners, undertake to operate in accordance with the principles above. The community reserves the right to remove a signatory from the charter where they do not.
Signing is free and open to anyone, in or outside the islands. It places no obligation on you beyond the principles themselves.
Signatories
Organisations and individuals who have adopted the Code. Listed in the order they signed.