Security operations continue to evolve as organizations gain access to more information across physical, digital and public environments. For colleges and universities, major event venues and other organizations responsible for public safety, this expanding information environment presents an opportunity to strengthen situational awareness and support more informed decision-making and rapid operational response.
Traditional security measures such as cameras, access controls, security personnel and cybersecurity programs remain essential. Increasingly, security teams are also incorporating analysis of publicly available information into their broader understanding of events and emerging situations.
This additional layer of awareness is known as Protective Intelligence.
By analyzing relevant activity across the information environment, security teams can identify emerging indicators, establish context around developing situations and provide decision-makers with information earlier in the process.
Expanding the Security Perimeter
Security teams have long focused on what is happening within a physical environment. Today, with the rapid growth of publicly available information, it has become essential to incorporate additional information about what is happening around that environment.
Online conversations may indicate plans for a campus event disruption. A post may provide information about activity near an event venue. An image or video may contain important information that is not included in its caption. A rapidly developing narrative may require additional context before it influences operational decisions.
Taken alone, these signals may not indicate a security concern. Assessed in context and alongside other relevant information, they can help security teams identify developing situations earlier and determine whether further action is warranted.
Protective Intelligence brings this information into the broader security picture, helping teams understand developments that may otherwise be difficult to observe through physical security systems alone.
Protective Intelligence as a Third Ring
Protective Intelligence can be viewed as a third ring that extends physical and digital security.
The first ring encompasses the physical environment, including facilities, personnel, access points and event spaces. The second focuses on digital infrastructure, networks and systems. The third extends awareness into the public information environment.
This third ring can support a range of security activities, including:
- Protecting major events and high-visibility activities
- Identifying emerging indicators associated with planned disruptions
- Supporting awareness around VIP visits and campus ceremonies
- Monitoring relevant security activity surrounding event venues
- Identifying targeted online harassment and doxxing
- Providing context around developing situations
- Assessing how narratives develop and spread across platforms
- Evaluating potentially manipulated or AI-generated media
The objective is not to replace existing security programs. Instead, Protective Intelligence adds another source of information that can help teams detect, assess and respond to emerging security incidents earlier and more rapidly.
Moving Beyond Text-Based Analysis
A key component of modern Protective Intelligence is the ability to analyze more than written content.
Images and video can contain information that is not included in a post’s text or caption. Computer vision and optical character recognition can help identify objects, locations and text embedded within visual content, providing analysts with additional context.
This approach was demonstrated during protective efforts associated with a major sporting event. Visual analysis identified information embedded within short-form video that was not present in the accompanying caption. By analyzing the content itself rather than relying solely on keywords, analysts could identify operational security information that might otherwise have been difficult to discover.
This illustrates the value of multimodal intelligence: actionable information can exist in many forms, and bringing those forms together can provide a more complete understanding of a situation.
The Growing Importance of Information Integrity
The increasing availability of AI-generated content introduces another consideration for security and communications teams.
Images, video and audio can increasingly be generated or manipulated using artificial intelligence. For organizations responsible for public safety and institutional communications, the ability to assess the authenticity of content can provide valuable context when evaluating information circulating online.
Synthetic-media assessment can be incorporated into the broader intelligence workflow. When potentially manipulated content is identified, analysts can consider its authenticity alongside other factors, including its source, location, timing and how it is spreading.
This capability can be particularly useful during fast-moving events. Misleading or manipulated content can influence public perception and create confusion even when the underlying event is not accurately represented. Understanding the authenticity and broader context of that content can therefore help security and communications teams make more informed decisions.
Narrative analysis provides another layer of context by examining how information develops across platforms and accounts. Rather than evaluating a single post in isolation, teams can examine how a narrative originated, how it spread and whether activity surrounding it appears coordinated.
Early Awareness Supports Better Preparation
Protective Intelligence provides information early enough to support improved planning and decision-making.
Drawing on Zignal’s work across college and university campuses nationwide, Protective Intelligence has identified online discussion surrounding planned disruption tied to high-profile campus events, sometimes days in advance of the activity itself. This has included both direct and more ambiguous discussion, analyzed as it developed across multiple platforms. Having this visibility gave security personnel additional time to prepare, determine an appropriate security posture and focus attention on the specific areas where activity was expected.
These examples demonstrate an important principle: effective early awareness does not require knowing exactly what will happen. Instead, it provides security teams with relevant information, context and time to evaluate potential developments and prepare accordingly.
Creating a Shared Intelligence Picture
Protective Intelligence can also strengthen collaboration between security, communications and organizational leadership.
Different teams may monitor the same event using different systems and information sources. Bringing relevant information into a shared intelligence picture can help establish a common understanding of what is occurring and how the situation is developing.
A centralized approach can combine text, imagery, video, geolocation, metadata and authenticity analysis within a single workflow. This allows analysts to evaluate multiple signals together rather than reviewing each source independently.
For higher education institutions and other organizations responsible for major public events, this shared perspective can support planning before an event, situational awareness during operations and information validation as circumstances change.
Practical Considerations for Security Leaders
Organizations looking to incorporate Protective Intelligence into their existing security practices can consider several priorities:
- Expand situational awareness: Consider relevant publicly available information alongside physical and digital security data.
- Embrace multimodal analysis: Evaluate text, imagery, video and metadata together to develop a more complete picture.
- Incorporate authenticity analysis: Add synthetic-media assessment to workflows for evaluating potentially manipulated content.
- Focus on high-visibility events: Establish enhanced protective intelligence around athletic events, ceremonies, VIP visits and other periods that require increased situational awareness.
- Build cross-functional collaboration: Give security, communications and leadership teams access to relevant information and shared context.
- Prioritize actionable information: Focus analytical resources on signals that can inform preparation, response and operational decision-making.
Looking Ahead
Modern security operations increasingly depend on understanding not only what is happening within a physical environment, but also the information environment surrounding it.
Protective Intelligence provides an additional layer of awareness by bringing together publicly available information, multimodal analysis and authenticity assessment with existing security practices. The result is a more comprehensive view of developing situations and the context needed to support effective decision-making.
For colleges, universities, major event venues and Public Sector organizations, the third ring represents an opportunity to continue advancing security operations alongside an evolving information environment.
By connecting physical, digital and information-based intelligence, organizations can build a more informed approach to security—one that emphasizes preparation, collaboration, information integrity and timely decision-making.
To learn how modern security teams are applying Protective Intelligence to strengthen force protection, improve situational awareness and identify emerging threats earlier, download the whitepaper: Applying Force Protection Intelligence to Modern Security Operations.
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