Have you ever wondered what makes people talk? What about how they tell a story? And how can we use that story to elicit information? Well, one way that people tell a story is through gossip. Despite it's negative connotations, gossip is a normal and natural form of communication that has evolved to meet certain social needs. And this is something that the skilled intelligence interviewer can use to their advantage. In fact, I've designed an entire interview model around maxi

Keeping our wits about us is the axiom used to help remember the R-WITS-US informant interview model. This is a bespoke interview model specifically designed to be used with informants. It incorporates rapport building techniques into a more holistic approach towards managing informant welfare and is the first interview model to include an explicit Tasking phase. This is the first interview model to recognise that how a handler manages informant Welfare and Tasking can direct

What three things can your intelligence interviewers do right now that could markedly improve their intellligence product and their critical evaluation of that product? Well, I dedicated my PhD research to understanding interviewer-informant interactions and the psychology we, as interviewers, can use to our advantage. And what three key recommendations would I make? Record everything. As interviewers we tend to focus on what is said, but sometimes, how it is said can be just

When researchers study lying - especially lies told in a forensic or custodial situation - they tend to treat the lie as something that occurs in isolation. But lies are rarely like that. This is especially true when we consider an informant interview. Informants are likely motivated to appear cooperative, and they might be expected to provide a relatively detailed account. Their motivation for lying might be different too. Rather than lying to protect themselves they might b

How often have you heard something like that? That handling informants, getting actionable operational intelligence from other humans, is easy. Because it's just "talking to people". Well, I was fortunate enough to conduct a survey with real life police informant handlers, and the results make it clear - handling informants is not easy! In fact, there are a number of interpersonal and organisational demands that the professional intelligence interviewer has to manage, and the