The importance of open source information and satellite imagery analysis in safeguards implementation

Full text: Since 1996, the analysis and evaluation of open source information, including satellite imagery, has become key to safeguards implementation. The Department of Safeguards' dedicated, open source database now contains over 4 million records. The satellite imagery database has approximately 7000 images. An important strategy is to collect open source information from as many diverse sources as possible. Information is collected from many geographical regions and in different languages. The types of information collected range from general news reports to highly specialized technical articles. Source diversity contributes towards the important objective of assessing the credibility of information obtained. Open sources provide a solid basis for assessing whether a State has the economic and industrial capabilities to support the development of nuclear weapons. Scientific literature is also a valuable indicator of nuclear capabilities and of dual-use technologies used in non-nuclear applications that could also be applied to nuclear ones. Information relating to company and business activities is important for improving knowledge of imports and exports of safeguards relevance and for assessing technological capabilities in the States concerned. Commercial satellite imagery is a powerful tool used in conjunction with open sources and with State-declared information which gives details of specific geographical locations. Routinely, satellite imagery is used to assess the functions and capabilities of research and nuclear fuel cycle facilities. It can also be helpful in detecting any changes in the features and characteristics of locations of safeguards relevance and in the identification of nuclear-related activities. For the future, it will be important to utilize software applications of greater sophistication in order to extract the knowledge from the large and rapidly growing databases of open source and satellite imagery information. Keyword search and retrieval technologies will remain at the core, but will need to be augmented with more advanced, conceptual approaches in data-mining. (author)