Secret services need AI for mountains of data

Without automation and artificial intelligence, intelligence services can no longer master their mountains of data. Kaupo Rosin, head of the Estonian Secret Service, said this during a late-night meeting of three Secret Service representatives at the Munich Security Conference.

During an audit of the Estonian intelligence service's data collections some time ago, the service discovered that much of the diligently collected data had never been touched by an analyst. Without machine learning and AI, intelligence work is no longer possible, said Rosin. “It is no longer possible to analyze the data manually”. They are therefore working intensively on tools to recognize patterns and trends in the data, “and we are getting better at it”, said Rosin.

Technology organizations

“We now see ourselves as a technology organization,” he said at the Bayerischer Hof. Anyone who has not yet jumped on this bandwagon is practically lost, said Rosin. The often-heard mention of hybrid threats was too vague for him and obscured the view of the means used by Russia, for example: classic espionage, cyberattacks by hired criminal groups, sabotage, murder, and arson.

His colleague Nozuko Gloria Bam, Director General of the State Security Agency, said that human analysis remains the backbone of intelligence work. “Artificial intelligence is of course a reality,” she said. Without big data approaches, the production of analyzes in real time would hardly be possible.

Her agency is therefore also considering how to train employees accordingly and how to recruit young employees with the relevant skills to complement the “dinosaurs”. One problem for Bam, according to her statement, is the tight budget of her “small authority”. This also forces her to rely more on cooperation with private companies.

A former employee of an Israeli service warned that the one-sided dependence of Israeli services on technology may have been the reason for the failure in the run-up to the Hamas attack on October 7. According to Rosin, the reason even well-equipped services were wrong in their analysis of Russian plans regarding Ukraine right up to the end was not due to a preference for a particular intelligence technology.

“Some correctly predicted the attack, others were wrong, but they were mistaken for good reasons,” said the Estonian. Those who made the means provided by the aggressor the basis of their assessment, and not the intentions, were particularly mistaken. In addition, the right sources in the Russian administration were needed. “The Russian system is huge, but most people in the ministries know nothing.” If Rosin has his way, the services should be more aggressive in future and also take “active measures” themselves, i.e., operations against the enemy.

New intelligence report on Russian exercises

In the meantime, individual services have received information that Russia is planning military exercises in Belarus and thus on the borders with the Baltic States. According to James Droxford, a former Navy and intelligence agent, the Danish foreign intelligence service FE presented a report just under a week ago, according to which Russia reactivated communications with ships of the Russian fleet that had been switched off after the Cold War. The services must reassess whether there is more behind this than just a show of force.

(mki)