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GEOINT Basics: Geolocating and Dating Public Imagery
How open-source researchers confirm where and when a photo or video was taken, using visual clues, satellite and street-level imagery, shadows and free tools.
What GEOINT means in open-source research
Geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) is analysis of imagery and location data. In open-source work it usually answers two questions about a photo or video: where was it taken (geolocation) and when (chronolocation). It is how researchers debunk recycled war footage, confirm damage to infrastructure and track environmental change.
Read the scene
Before opening any map, list every clue in the image: signs and shop names, the language and script, road markings and which side traffic drives on, licence plates, power poles, architecture, vegetation, terrain, mountains on the horizon and the position of the sun. Each clue narrows the search area. Distinctive, permanent features (a bridge, a minaret, a mountain profile) are worth more than cars or people.
Match it to the map
- Street level: Google Street View, Apple Look Around and the community-driven Mapillary.
- Satellite and aerial: Google Earth Pro, including its historical imagery slider, and Bing Maps.
- Map data: OpenStreetMap, which you can query with Overpass Turbo (for example, every church within 200 metres of a railway in a region).
A geolocation is only confirmed when several independent features line up in the same relationship to each other. Publish the coordinates with an annotated side-by-side comparison so readers can check your work.
Work out when
Shadows give the sun’s direction and height, which tools like SunCalc turn into a time of day for a known place and date. Weather records, seasonal vegetation, construction progress and known events narrow it further. Free satellite imagery helps with dates: the Copernicus Browser gives access to Sentinel-2 imagery, which revisits most places every few days, and NASA Worldview shows daily global imagery and active fire data. Commercial providers offer higher resolution, usually for a fee.
Metadata is a clue, not proof
Photo metadata (EXIF) can include the camera, time and GPS position, but most social platforms strip it on upload, and it is easy to edit. Treat metadata as one clue to be confirmed by the image itself.
Use it responsibly
Geolocate events, public places, conflict damage and environmental change. Do not geolocate private people’s homes or routines, and blur bystanders before publishing. The same skills that verify a war crime can endanger a person, so the research question always comes first.