How To Conduct Geolocation
Added 2021-10-29 10:11:32 +0000 UTCIn an exclusive video for our Patreon subscribers, Giancarlo Fiorella explains the concept of geolocation and how it can be put to use by online investigators.
You can find some of the many Bellingcat investigations that have utilised geolocation here. Explainer pieces that detail how to perfect geolocation techniques can be found here. A more detailed breakdown of how we located the beach image detailed in this video can also be found here.
Comments
Definitely! Part of the process might involve finding reference images from places other than Google Maps. For example, other mapping services like Yandex Maps, Bing Maps, or Mapillary might have more recent images from the location that you're searching. You could also look for walking tours or travel videos on YouTube from the place that you're searching, A lot of geolocation comes down to the question, "Where else could I find pictures from this place?"
Bellingcat
2021-11-02 18:44:21 +0000 UTCHi Akash, People are trying to do this. We know researchers who've experimented with different automation processes. One involved an AI that was trained to spot certain types of buildings, like stadiums or bridges,
Bellingcat
2021-11-02 18:43:36 +0000 UTCI’ve seen a few places where Google street view is outdated for about 6 years, and when I came there, the surroundings were totally different. I bet the newer photos from those places are much harder to geolocate.
Nick
2021-11-01 06:59:46 +0000 UTCThis is interesting. I wonder if this activity can be automated, so that the results can be achieved faster? - Maybe create a database of images taken from Google Maps (street view) and create a similarity search index. Which can then be mapped to any new image that is uploaded
Aakash Gupta
2021-10-30 05:00:03 +0000 UTCHi James, thanks for the comment. Here is a detailed breakdown: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/12/05/two-europol-stopchildabuse-images-geolocated-part-i-madagascar/ We'll update the description text to include this link too. Another interesting example of advanced geolocation and some very useful techniques can be found here: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/12/17/two-europol-stopchildabuse-images-geolocated-part-ii-cambodia/
Bellingcat
2021-10-29 15:51:32 +0000 UTCHi, thanks for good introduction to geolocation, but you skipped a few steps and pretty much everything you promised to show, the catch was ," How can you geolocate an image like this?" Im really curious! But suddenly you went from, all of south east asia, India, Australia and East Africa to Madagascar, how? scanning this area in 2 weeks? And then even Madagascar is not that small but I can see how it is possible to scan the beach areas in madagascar, how could he narrow it down to three spots? So rally looking forward to hear about how it was done as promised. :)
James Cronin
2021-10-29 12:48:19 +0000 UTC
