A private intelligence agency is a private sector or quasi-non-government organization devoted to the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information, through the evaluation of public sources and cooperation with other institutions. Some private intelligence agencies obtain information deceptively or through on-the-ground activities for clients. Private agencies have made their services available to governments as well as individual consumers; they have also sold their services to large corporations with an interest or investment in the category or the region or to investigate perceived threats such as environmental groups or human rights groups. Some private intelligence agencies use online perception management, social media influencing/manipulation campaigns, strategic disinformation, opposition research and political campaigns using social media and artificial intelligence such as Psy-Group, Cambridge Analytica and Black Cube. The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab described the activity of Archimedes Group as practicing "information warfare". Former anti-corruption prosecutor Aaron Sayne said private intelligence is "an industry that's largely undocumented and has very flexible ethical norms" as agencies collect and use sensitive information "for one purpose on day one and some completely contradictory purpose on day two". The private intelligence industry has boomed due to shifts in how the U.S. government is conducting espionage in the War on Terror. Some $56 billion or 70% of the $80 billion national intelligence budget of the United States was in 2013 earmarked for the private sector according to The New York Times Tim Shorrock. Functions previously performed by the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and other intelligence agencies are now outsourced to private intelligence corporations. Private intelligence agencies have also been seen in fiction. Rubicon, a TV series from AMC, was devoted to the intelligence consultancy American Policy Institute. In the Kingsman franchise, Kingsman is a private intelligence service of which main character Eggsy is a member. In season 5 of the spy-thriller series Covert Affairs, the CIA contract missions to a private military company called McQuaid Security which Annie Walker eventually joins. Private intelligence companies often have offensive and defensive cybersecurity capabilities, some companies have close ties to government such as DarkMatter from the United Arab Emirates.
List of private intelligence companies by continent
