Welcome to Bellingcat’s Online Open Source Investigation Toolkit!
This is your place to discover tools! Our toolkit includes satellite and mapping services, tools for verifying photos and videos, websites to archive web pages, and much more. Most of the tools that we include can be used for free.
On the left hand side, you can see all available categories (for instance, Maps & Satellites or Geolocation). Click on these category names to enter the tool lists.
If you click on "Details" on the right hand side of each entry in the tool list (if available) you will receive an in-depth description of the tool.
You can also download the tool lists for each category in csv format.
This toolkit is still a work-in-progress and the number of available tool descriptions will grow over time. You can read more about the toolkit here.
Our Toolkit Maintainers and Guardians
Bellingcat’s Online Investigation Toolkit has a long tradition but our newest version is special: It is offered in collaboration with the Bellingcat volunteer community.
Bellingcat volunteers, staff and the wider open source researcher community contribute to writing and updating toolkit descriptions. Bellingcat staff checks each toolkit entry before it goes online.
If our Toolkit Maintainers choose to be publicly mentioned, you can find their names on individual tool pages under "page maintainer".
Our Toolkit Guardians have a special role: They help us further develop this toolkit to make sure it meets the needs of open source researchers.
Contribute to this Toolkit
You can contribute to Bellingcat's toolkit by submitting toolkit descriptions via this form. Not all submissions will be accepted, please review our guidelines and tips on how to write and submit a good toolkit description. Only descriptions that fulfil all requirements will be considered.
Bellingcat Team and Contact
This collaborative toolkit has been designed by Bellingcat staff member Johanna Wild during her 2024 Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellowship in Journalism Innovation at Harvard University.
Viktorija Ignatavičiūtė and Galen Reich contributed to defining the volunteer involvement for this project, with Viktorija Ignatavičiūtė supporting our toolkit volunteer community also on a daily basis.
If you have any feedback or questions, please get in touch with Johanna Wild via toolkit@bellingcat.com. Please do not suggest tools that you would like to see added to the toolkit via this e-mail address.
About Bellingcat
Bellingcat is an independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists brought together by a passion for open source research.
Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can so here.
We also provide workshops on open source investigative methods and tools. For those of you interested in becoming a Bellingcat volunteer, have a look at our volunteer community page.
