OSINT for Modern Slavery and Exploitation

Modern slavery investigations concern relationships built around control.

A victim may appear to have accepted employment, travelled voluntarily, shared accommodation with other workers or participated in criminal activity. The exploitation becomes visible only when investigators examine who arranged the opportunity, controlled the journey, retained the money, supplied the accommodation, imposed debts, restricted movement or benefited from the activity.

OSINT can help reveal that wider system. Recruitment advertisements, company records, property information, business reviews, social media, adult-services websites, online marketplaces and court reporting may expose links between victims, recruiters, employers, premises and suspected exploiters. Public information can identify businesses through which exploitation is concealed, locate other potential victims and reveal patterns extending across several places or organisations.

What Is Modern Slavery?

Modern slavery is an umbrella term encompassing human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour. Under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the principal offences in England and Wales include:

• Slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour
• Arranging or facilitating another person’s travel with a view to exploitation

For the human-trafficking offence, travel can take place within a country as well as across international borders. A victim does not need to have entered the UK unlawfully or been transported over a long distance.

Exploitation may include:

• Labour exploitation
• Sexual exploitation
• Criminal exploitation
• Domestic servitude
• Removal of organs
• Securing services through force, threats or deception
• Securing services from children or vulnerable people in circumstances where an adult without that vulnerability would be likely to refuse