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"According to information uncovered by a Bahraini blogger who goes by the name Chan'ad Bahraini,\u00A0Olton, a British intelligence firm may be assisting the Bahrain government in keeping tabs on activists and dissidence in the country.\r\n\r\nOlton, a London based company founded by a former intelligence analyst in the UK navy specializing in corporate intelligence consultancy, is known to have worked with Bahrain's government, but the nature of that work has been questioned.\r\n\r\nAt\u00A0first glance, Olton's description of the kind of its services it does is vague enough to make it sound equally sinister and harmless at the same time:\r\n\r\nOlton provide intelligence across a wide range\u00A0of corporate and government sectors, meeting the \u2018need to know\u2019 with reliable, actionable insight. Our investigation and analysis is thorough, timely and effective.\r\n\r\nOur aim is to unearth relevant information to underpin the best decision making, whether over complex or single issues. We identify the critical factors that reveal risks and opportunities, so leading to a better understanding of the whole picture than an adversary.\r\nThe Bahrain Tender Board posts reports of all tender awards, and the document for April clearly lists Olton. According to the report, Olton was contracted by Bahrain's Economic Development Board for two months, to &amp;quot;to develop an electronic system to track international media.&amp;quot; It sounds harmless enough.\r\n\r\nDigging a little deeper, Chan'ad found a puzzling recommendation on the LinkedIn profile of Olton's Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa, Mark C. The recommendation comes courtesy of none other than Yousef BuHazza, a member of Bahrain's Ministry of Interior.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nDid Olton develop a similar electronic system to track more than just international media?\r\n\r\nOlton's services and technology are described on the company's site:\r\nAt Olton, we are world leaders in \u2018Open Source\u2019 intelligence retrieval: the collection and analysis of unclassified, publicly available information....This is largely due to ORA, Olton\u2019s own, patent pending technology: the first complete solution for managing investigations amongst the vast quantities of information available on the web and other public sources.\r\n\r\nOlton\u2019s ORA software platform is unique. With its \u2018web-trawling\u2019 technology and methodology, it is capable of producing considerably more usable, quality data, because it goes far beyond publicly available search engines. This allows our researchers to delve deeper into many databases, subscription sources and obscure corners of the internet, simultaneously.\r\nORA uses not only Olton's own patent technology, but also integrates Microsoft and Dell technology in the mix.\r\n\r\nThe site also clearly states:\r\n&amp;quot;We apply our expertise to identify, monitor and analyse relevant media information, thus freeing communications teams to develop and execute winning reputation management strategies...\r\n\r\nOlton achieves mastery across the traditional broadcast, print and standard online media. Significantly, we are also leaders in understanding the influential, modern \u2018Web 2.0\u2019 media, such as Twitter, Facebook and web forums, and their ever-morphing variations.&amp;quot;\r\nChan'ad adds:\r\nOlton launched and heavily promoted its ORA software platform this February at IDEX in Abu Dhabi -- the largest weapons and defence exhibition in the Middle East.\r\nHe also points to a tweet\u00A0believed to be about Olton, posted at the time of the exhibition by a former reporter for the UAE's newspaper,\u00A0The National:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nHe also uncovered the fact that the Olton founder filed a patent for their technology in 2008, with one particularly worrying paragraph:\r\nSecurity agencies may apply this capability to their efforts to detect and track insurgent activity, and provide a mechanism for operatives to pool and share their knowledge in a secure and controlled way.\r\nAs Chan'ad says, none of this is conclusive, but there are far too many question marks in the information provided. Could all of the information uncovered be sheer coincidence?\r\n\r\nWestern companies continue to be implicated in investigations of governments clamping down on their citizens' freedom of speech, whether in\u00A0Libya, Syria, Tunisia\u00A0and beyond.\r\n\r\nWhile outright censorship of websites has long been known to be practiced in Bahrain, could this be the first hint that, like its counterparts, Bahrain has also been using western technology to track down and arrest anti-government protesters?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/me/2011/11/10/is-a-british-firm-helping-bahrains-ministry-of-interior-monitor-online-activity/>