Hello, Good day, well we're going to carry on with his tasking and training. This of course is refers to tasking, training of the source or your sources. Remember last lesson we did active listening, how to listen how to glean more information out of sources. And next we're going to look at surveillance awareness, so much more of an operational a getting out in the ground type of subject, but it can also cover cyber surveillance. So it does have a lot of widespread interest. But going back to tasking and training.

So the aims of this lesson are obviously to introduce you to the subject of tasking, to look at the types of training that we can give to sources to consider why we would need to train them, are we just developing their skills remember these sources can be anywhere in the world. And I've taught sources in Africa remotely. So been in the US and taught them online remotely. I've, I've taught sources face to face, and many, many countries around the world. So it varies. It varies on the capability of the source varies on your information requirements.

And so there's a lot to this quite a lot to think about. So tasking the source token of things to think about. Some considerations are, what are your information requirements. If your information requirements are initially and provide me with route information between A and B, that's fine, they'll drive the route or they'll be passionate in the route and the taxi and they'll get the information they needed, send it back to you. If your information requirements change, in that you need photographs of bridges and petrol stops to ensure that they're working and also as a as it test for the source and to give more developed information, more valuable information so your eyes might change. So that you may have to provide your source for the camera, for instance, less likely nowadays because most people have cameras on their phones, but it's a possibility you may have to provide them training and how to use that camera.

And that, of course, includes the batteries, how to fit them the SIM card if they've got one, how do you download photographs from the camera onto the laptop? So it comes to a little bit of complexities, a lot of the information you can get online. So YouTube's a great source. And there may be some language difficulties if your source lives in a foreign country that you don't speak the language of. And that's always an issue. But it depends on what the inflammation requirements are.

Like I said, the they might start start off with something simple, but your information requirements may develop out to get me a photograph of this bridge to make sure that the humanitarian aid can get across it. And I also want that photograph with metadata. So date timestamps and also the latitude longitude of where it was taken. But to verify that that's the correct bridge, but verify also that the source was actually there on the day and the time that he or she said there were, so it can change quite considerably. So what can you source find out? So we're looking at tasking the source?

How do you provide them with a realistic tasking? Again, it loops back to the information requirements. But what can the source actually get as far as information goes too far as far as answering the information requirements? If they don't have access, then they're pretty much useless. So you need to determine that and of course, you need to determine that begin the relationship with the source, you may get a new information requirement in that means that you can go back to a source you already know their access of and test them with some new tasks. So it means that they may be doing two jobs for you, because their access can answer new information requirements.

And what is the source prepared to do to get that information for you? I'm not talking about risks, their safety and security. I mean, are they willing to do the sex to work? What is their motivating factor? If the motivating factor is financial? Then Okay, they get more money for providing that second round of information.

If it's, they want to please they just want to work. Yeah, you know, again, you have to work out the motivating factors and then you can approach your source in a different way. What's the source capable of doing? Can they get the information? Are they mentally equipped to get the information you require? Can they follow the instructions you provide them?

Can they drive or get a taxi from that route to a to b, to check to see if it's roadworthy still? Can they take those photographs of that bridge? Can they put the metadata or make sure the metadata is on the photographs when you take them? So it's their capability? If the answer to that is no, of course, then you have to start looking for someone else. One of the communication links and point of contact between you and your source.

Are they suitable enough so they he or she can send photographs. You they may have internet challenges. Maybe they have to go to a cafe and upload photographs, and then you have to consider the safety security of that information. If it's sensitive, then that's going to be a problem. You may have to train the SOS in a slightly different way to use encrypted app like WhatsApp, for instance. And can they?

Is the timeline that you've requested from the source? realistic? Is the timeline that the client has requested to view realistic? If the answer there is no, then you need to address that with the client, you need to address it with the source. source will sometimes let you down because they're late. They may promise quick delivery, but circumstances on the ground may be different, maybe more difficult and challenging.

So you have to encourage them to be realistic. Can you drive this route? Can you take these photographs back and have them delivered to me within four days? A lot of the time they'll say yes, because they want to please you. And yes, because they want the money quickly. But realistically, depending on the weather conditions, the road conditions the available ability of vehicles and feel and the availability of the source may actually take longer.

So you have to speak to them realistically and say look, I need to know really what you think rather than yes four days I can do it no problems and make false promises. You have to consider when tasking the source, their safety and security, every single tasking that you give them, you have to consider either yourself or consider with the source. Is it safe and is it secure? They may well appreciate the security conditions differently to you do. They, they they probably live it on a day to day basis and they're not immune to it maybe but they're certainly more experienced. So you have to take a lead a little bit from the source but at the end, it's your call if it's if you think it's safe and secure for them to Do it, then that's fine.

If you have any concerns, then you can discuss discuss that with the source. So it may be that you don't want them to travel at night because it's very dangerous. There's bandits or illegal checkpoints on the on the road. And then that's fine. You can stipulate that make sure you make a record of any logbook. Is it legal for the source to do what you've asked them to do in their country, remember, laws change.

So maybe lawful and lawful instructions go and take photographs of the bridge in your country because no one really cares and it's easily accessible. Some countries are very, very sensitive. South Sudan, for instance, in my experience is very sensitive to photographs being taken. Probably the most, but there's, I'm sure there's lots of countries like it. You take photographs of the bridge, you could run into trouble with the police and the security forces. They are I've seen that happen quite a lot.

So is it legal in the sources country? And is it legal also for the client to ask those questions or demand those answers to their information requirements? So you have to balance out. And again speaking to the source, because you're not going to know about everyone well, but is illegal. Can you actually do this without running into any trouble? And taking photographs is always a challenge around air bases, military bases, and sensitive installations, such as power plants, it varies greatly from country to country, but you can run into a lot of trouble.

So you have to be very, very cautious and you have to demand that the sources very cautious as well. And if you think you can't deliver that bit of the information requirement, us tell the client and say no, we can't take, we can't take photographs around that power plant because the source will get arrested. Do you have any liability? Talking it through and getting their perspective offsets that, if they're happy to do it after you've talked through and done a verbal risk assessment with them, then okay, as long as you consider it safe, then you go and do that job. Otherwise likely to disclose the task to a third party. And is that a problem?

I mean, if you're looking at a route report for humanitarian work from between A and B, it's not necessarily sensitive. I would say I would suggest that all your work with the source should be caveated, that it's sensitive because it's business sensitive. You don't want everyone talking about what they're doing. So I would I would remind the source regularly that discusses between you as a handler and him or her as a source Remain sensitive business sensitive, will the tasking effect report in any way it could do wants to know maybe that you're asking them to go into an area where they won't be welcome not necessarily unsafe or insecure, but somewhere they don't want to go because they don't fit in their different tribe. Their different political leaning, and it's going to be obvious to the local nationals around where they're where they're traveling to, that could affect report.

If you pressurize the source into trying to do a tasking, they don't really want to do for various reasons, that will almost certainly affect report. And as I said in the last slide, the capability Are you asking too much from the source? invariably, they will say, Yes, I can do it or Yes, I'll find my line. My brother will help me take photographs. That's quite a common one. If you're exceeding their capabilities, then chances are they may fail.

In the task, which means you won't be able to answer the information requirements back to the clients. Could they be deceptive with information? This new tasking? Is it going to force them to rather than give themselves? They're just going to ask people have traveled that route and get the information from that? Are they going to send a taxi up there to take photographs of the bridges rather than do it themselves?

Is that an issue? Is it a problem, as long as you get the photographs? Well, you're relying on that source for information. So you need to be able to ensure that the veracity of the information you get back from is as good as possible. So rather than the taxi driver driving up there and taking photographs, you want the source to do it, because it's with him or her that you have that business relationship that trust that rapport, and you know, they're going to do a good job. Maybe the taxi driver says you'll do it and doesn't do it.

Lets the source down. who in turn lets you down which means that you have to go Back to the client and ask for an extension. That's what the full timeline is. If you're asking too much of the source or you pressurize them into doing a tasking or it's a new tasking that they're not really sure about, but they've made promises, usually ends up in a fell timeline I information that you've requested, is late or just doesn't turn up. In the cases of that those have said previously on lessons are prevarication, they're making excuses, that the information is going to be late even before they've gone out to get the information. That's always a red flag.

Could be they go radio silent, you try to get in touch with them, and they don't answer. If this is uncommon, then something's wrong, either totally unrelated with a home life for instance, or they just don't want to speak to you to say that the information is going to be late or you're not going to get it at all. And quite commonly, source can be over enthusiastic and promise too much. And the reason they do that is because they want to work for you or they want to work for the money, whatever the motivating factor is, they'll say yes to almost everything. So you've got to speak to them and try and get a realistic assessment of their capability. Can they do it?

And can they do it in time. So remember, ensure the source receives the right amount of information to produce the required work, give them a scope, if necessary, given the checklist I want. ABCD done and I want photographs of each one with the metadata on it. Remember, we talked about metadata, and so on and so forth. Obviously, maintain and build rapport if you're unsure about something and talk it through that will help you maintain the report. Get a realistic answer from if they don't want to do it.

If they Can't do it, then that's a good time to look at your network development. Maybe they know someone who can do it. A truck driver, for instance, so their brother who drives trucks up and down that route A to B, almost every day, can he do it? Yes, he can do he knows the route perfectly great, then that's a great source of information, then you've got to do recruit the brother as a source or as a source, a sub source. We'll discuss that in a couple of seconds. And you're always continuously assess assessing the access, motivation point of contact capability of the source, and it will change remember, so that's the whole reason why you're constantly assessing, don't get lazy.

Constantly assess that and POC and if it changes, make sure you make a record of it and also assess it see if it's a red flag for some form of behavior or it's going to affect inflammation in some ways. assess the risk with a source so that they know what they're taking on. And you know that you're that they're happy with doing the work. So you assess their safety and security. discuss their concerns, make sure that they appreciate they've got four days to do it or seven days to do it, but it has to be delivered on that Seventh Day. by four o'clock in the afternoon, give them clear timelines, and make sure they understand that give it in writing, and make sure it's verbally delivered as well.

If they want some training, or if you think there's a training gap, like the camera, for instance, then deliver that. It may be that it's going to take a day or two to confirm that train because what you want to do is train them on the camera, get them to use it, take a few photographs, send it through to you. Make sure the metadata is on there. That's a requirement. Make sure the photographs are good and clear. And also make sure the delivery system is working fine, I using WhatsApp and that's delivering photographs without a problem.

Emails may be a bit of a challenge because you might be able to be only able to fit a few photographs on there. So offer that training and test it bearing in mind, you might have a timeline. And training is something you can do proactively. You don't have to wait for an information requirement in that says we need photographs. By that time, it may be a bit of a problem. So if you think they're capable than ask them to send a few photographs through the village, where they live or the time they live or the road that passes by their house or a few photographs of the local market, mine stores to keep all electronics items tidy.

Again, not that the photographs are sensitive, as much as it's good practice. It's good security practice in that once you've done the job and delivered all the items, the information on the phone graphs, then delete them off your system. Don't want it hanging around. I mean, it's not majorly an issue. But for instance, if you stopped at a checkpoint and the police started looking through your phone and there's random photographs on their bridges, power plants, police stations, roads, it will definitely lead to more questions. So once you've used the data, once they clear the sources use the data on their phones or their cameras, then delete and make sure there's no copies left or make sure that they've sent the copies to you before obviously they've deleted it.

It's asking and training will help you maintain and build rapport because you're growing the relationship your capacity building. Update the source if you're if you're training about access, motivation, point of contact capability, anything details like that. And of course, any concerns they have for poor delivery times, update the source of all the data. So update the source log, work with the data, and updating your concerns, and also advice you provided. So you would update the logbook. With fat, you've discussed the risk, the safety and security risk of traveling that road to that village, staying overnight and coming back to taking photographs.

And if you're unsure about an answer, or course of action, then if you have a line manager, for instance, if you're working for an organization escalate, if you're unsure about safety and security before you commit, escalate it to your line manager to get some clarification, get some clear thought behind it. But more on training. So as I've said language made I challenge you can get lots of training in foreign languages on YouTube. And then the challenge is making sure that that's the right type of training. Of course. There's a lot of open source material, YouTube, how to all that sort of stuff, you can go to how to just type in how to access metadata on a photo.

For instance, if you want to see the date time, lat long if the source wants to confirm that that's on there before they send it to you. A lot of that stuff is available now on the internet on how to and YouTube training, safety and security. Not only the safety, security of the source, but also the phone the camera and GPS communications. They should be secure and the source and how to use them carefully. So they're not upsetting local nationals by taking photographs when they shouldn't be. They're not standing on bridges when the police are watching.

So retrained that Trying to help as necessary by retraining course. At the end of the year, you may think okay, well there's been a year sources only taking one or two photographs, we'll just do some refresher training, retrain the retrain the source on how to use the camera and how to use the camera safely. For instance, you can train them on interviewing, how to how to interview a person, how to do it in detail, and how to make sure you maintain rapport. Also report writing if you want them to write clear, concise reports, you can train them on that and also how to identify other people, other potential sources that may be may have different access than they have, you can provide more information about certain aspects of the information requirements. So that's very useful. And it could be that you want the initial source to manage the sub source.

That's very good. It can get a little untidy, but it means that you can cover more of an area and you're only speaking to the source source, then managers 1234 sub sources, and they may go to four markets in the area to get market prices every Friday or every Saturday. And so you can do it that way. And that means you're only still dealing with the main source, you're not dealing with five sources. And sources get more money because he or she is now managing four sub sources. Now pretty much running, the information access and the information availability in their area.

And depending on where you are is theater of operations as a military term there. additional training may be required in self first aid. So if you have sources working in Syria and you want them to do that route study, you may think is valuable for them to have a bit more information on how to look after yourself if, if there's a road accident, or if you run into a security incident and someone's injured checkpoint approaches, it's always useful skill to have. Mostly locals will know how to talk to checkpoints, get through them. But it's always from a safety and security perspective, best practice to talk them through the process. Calmly keep your hands where they can be seen, and what to do if they have to be searched and how to how to behave and how to approach checkpoints and manage managing security force approaches.

So if a policeman comes up says Why are you taking photos of the village? What do you say what do you do? Well, I'm working and I'm taking photographs of food and the food prices, so I can send it back to this company is based in United Kingdom. They use that the pricing index on a weekly basis to determine prices of various vegetables and cooking aisles and so on so forth. Maybe give them a line like that a bit more of an explanation as to what actually they're doing and why they're taking photographs, how to be discreet, how not to take photographs of people who don't want to be photographed in or in areas where they shouldn't be taking photographs, more advanced interviewing and report writing writing skills, as I mentioned, memory skills. It may be that you want them to drive that route from A to B but not take notes.

For some reason you don't want it highlighted at a checkpoint. So they have to remember given some practice on memory, memory skills and recalling skills, talent spotting, as I've said, how they identify new potential sources or sub sources in the area that's got different access. secure communications, apps with encryption if you want to use those rather than email, how to use them, introduce them to it, if If they weren't aware of different apps such as signal and WhatsApp, or even email, if they're not really used to using email on a regular basis, like most of us are these days, how to use that, how to upload photographs, how to make them secure, and that could link in with your report writing. So the first part will be three or four paragraphs of your report of the of the road trip and then add the photographs in afterwards, you may only be able to get four in because of the size.

If that's the case, send another email with the remainder of the photographs, surveillance awareness, which is the lesson we're going to be doing next. But there's always criminals out there. The criminals use surveillance as a way of detecting victims. Sometimes their surveillance will say No, it's too risky for them to break into that house and steal or attack that person on the street. Other times it will say okay, now's a good time. Time to attack that person on the street, grab their bag, take their laptop and transporting.

Just reiterating what I've said previously, but looking for other sources often they like sources like to stick to their families for valid reasons they want the money to stay in the family. If if the brother or the sister or the mother or the father has good access and can answer information requirements, why not and then you can cross deck a lot of this information to the brother or sister from the source. So talent spotting is a good skill for source to have. And it means you have to take them into your trust a lot more I have to say right my information requirements on an on a different project are I need to know about the hotels in the center of town and your sister has access to those so I would like to use it for that work, linear trend sister up if you've got that Know the source running or the sources using our as a sub source and supporting the sources information gathering.

So in summary, this is just a quick one, talking through the task in the training, but it's very, very valid. It helps with the development of the source and the development of networks. For tasking, be thorough and realistic and always be concerned about the sources safety and security, discuss it, the source will probably say, yes, it's fine. It's not a problem here, in Syria, in Yemen, in Nigeria, in a lot of these places where you may want information, remember, report, keep building it, maintain it and build it as much as possible, given the source more work. And in return for more money is is a great way of building rapport. But it's up to you to assess them, motivating practice and record any interactions, you've gotten us.

Any tasking, make sure you make a note of it, you keep a record, and the training be systematic before thinking. So again with the camera, they may not want to use or may not have to use a camera at the moment. But if you want to develop the source, make the feel wanted and also improve their skill sets, then making sure that they know how to use the camera and they know how to send those photographs back to you safely and securely. And they're not going to get into trouble but taking photographs and so on so forth. Go through a systematic process with them to pass that information over. And it does take quite a bit of time.

So you have to factor that into your your routine and also their routine. And one thing to think about is source may ask if they're going to get extra pay for doing that training. And that's up to you. It may be that you'll say okay, on the next job that requires photographs, If you send me photographs, the way you've been trained, and they're good, then I'll give you a bonus. And that will be your training, payment. Discuss it all with the source is there any areas, whether it week metadata is sometimes one they don't understand the concept necessarily, they've never used it on a day to day basis.

So explaining how that is and having this training already written down. It's gonna save you a lot of time and effort. So you pull it out the file, send it to them, read it through, and then we can discuss it next time we speak. Provide refresher training. So if in a year's time you look in the sources log, and a year ago, they had camera training, they've hardly used it. Then provide them some refresher training with it.

Ask them to go out next for the next trip to get information at the market for instance, and say take a couple of photographs just to keep them updated. So that on the day that you actually need them to take photographs that are ready. And this will develop the capability of sources and it'll build the relationship between you and him or you and her over the over time. So it's being systematic about the task in training, will pay dividends when you actually ask the source to go out and do something extra for you. So that's it. If you have any questions, send them to me.

It's just a quick filler, but it's a very, very valuable component of managing and handling your sources. We're going to move on from here to do surveillance awareness, which will be a little bit of a longer lesson, but I think very valid. So I'm looking forward to doing that one soon. Take care. Bye bye.