"Technical intelligence is now irreplaceable within intelligence services. The set of sensors it covers seems to be a response to many operational constraints and is one of the priorities of the most sensitive government departments. This trend towards the 'technologisation' of services has been growing steadily since the beginning of the 21st century, despite the significant budgetary resources it requires. This is particularly true in the United States, where Edward Snowden's revelations in 2013 demonstrated not only the scale of the surveillance system, but also the importance of technology in the intelligence services, particularly in terms of data collection and analysis.

However, this preponderance of technical sensors cannot overshadow the importance of human intelligence (HUMINT), the importance of which was emphasised as early as 2008 in the French White Paper on National Defence and Security: "Special attention will be paid, in the overall effort, to human intelligence. This implies improving the recruitment and training of personnel responsible for this mission, increasing the number of sources and improving their geographical distribution according to our priority areas of interest.

Human sources are an unquestionable and indispensable capability enhancement, as they enable the collection of protected information that is not accessible through open sources, and can also facilitate the contextualisation of information. This paper opts to discuss the use of human intelligence within intelligence services and the prospects offered by technological developments. The present document does not addressthe rules and standards that govern and regulate the action of intelligence services."

To read more :