What is OSINT?
Open-source intelligence is not defined by a particular tool. It is the disciplined use of lawfully accessible information to answer a defined question.
What counts as an open source
Open sources include official registers, APIs, published notices, statistics, filed documents, and other material available without privileged access. Bolagsverket and Statistics Sweden provide company records, while Polismyndigheten publishes a selection of current event notices through an open API. [1][2][6]
Open does not mean unimportant, error-free, or free of legal obligations. It describes access, not quality or permission for every possible use.
A method, not the product
OSINT is the method used to find, test, and contextualize public information. It becomes defensible intelligence only when records are normalized, time-stamped, reviewed, documented, and kept linked to their evidence. Thea is building infrastructure for that full path from source to finding.
Questions the data can support
Which published events mention an area, and how does the pattern change over time?
Is this the correct legal entity, and how have its registered facts changed?
Which records match a defined geography, category, size, or activity profile?
What becomes visible when a changing public feed is collected consistently?
The value is in the preparation
A source entry answers only the question it was designed to answer. Commercially useful data requires consistent identifiers, normalized fields, collection dates, provenance, documented coverage, and a clear distinction between source facts and derived signals.
The EU Open Data Directive recognizes company and company-ownership data as a category with high potential for reuse. [3] Reuse still depends on the conditions attached to each source and on applicable data-protection rules.
Sources
- Find company information: Bolagsverket
- Statistics Sweden's Business Register: Statistics Sweden
- Open Data Directive: EUR-Lex
- Intresseavvägning som rättslig grund: IMY
- Navigating the AI Act: European Commission
- API över polisens händelser: Polismyndigheten
- Regler för öppna data: Polismyndigheten