PhD defence: Conceptualising Social Media for Proactive Intelligence Enhancement

To estimate potential disturbances during large-scale social movements, such as protests and demonstrations, the police often relies on open sources like social media. While these vast streams of posts can be valuable, they also bring significant challenges. There are technical hurdles, such as massive volumes of data, rapid shifts, and uncertain reliability. At the same time, ethical concerns arise, including issues of privacy, transparency, and explainability. Another key aspect is the human analyst: how can these extensive, multidimensional datasets be presented in a simple and accessible way, enabling analysts to make well-founded decisions?

This study lays the groundwork for addressing such questions by combining AI with a new framework for interface design, alongside a structured consideration of societal values such as privacy by design. It also introduces a dashboard where all insights converge. The aim is to make police work more transparent and to open the door toward a future of safe and responsible transparency.