Seeking to develop an early-warning system based on material 'scraped' from social networks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wants an application that provides information about possible domestic and global threats superimposed onto maps 'using mash-up technology'.

The bureau has asked contractors to suggest possible solutions, including the estimated cost, reports the BBC.

The FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) posted its "Social Media Application" market research request onto the web on January 19, and the New Scientist magazine subsequently flagged it up.

It says the application should collect "open source" information and have the ability to:

Provide an automated search and scrape capability of social networks including Facebook and Twitter.

Allow users to create new keyword searches.

Display different levels of threats as alerts on maps, possibly using colours coding to distinguish priority.

Plot a wide range of domestic and global terror data.

Immediately translate foreign language tweets into English.

The FBI says the information would be used to help it to predict the likely actions of "bad actors", detect instances of people deliberately misleading law enforcement officers and spot the vulnerabilities of suspect groups. (ANI)