The future of human rights investigations: Using open source intelligence to transform the documentation and discovery of human rights violations

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Technology is rapidly transforming how investigations of human rights abuses are carried out. Traditionally, investigations relied upon witness testimony and on-site evidence to prove the existence of human rights violations. More recently, however, human rights investigations have been turning to Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), such as social media content and satellite imagery, to overcome the physical, security, and societal barriers to gathering reliable evidence. In August 2017, the International Criminal Court issued its first arrest warrant based on social media evidence.OSINT has the potential to democratise the flow of information on international human rights violations in an unprecedented way. By allowing investigations to be carried out remotely, and by enabling information to be received directly from witnesses and victims rather than through intermediaries, OSINT can break down some of the barriers that have silenced some voices in traditional investigations and prioritised others. However, new issues arise with these types of investigations. The huge volume of evidence retrievable from social media can make it difficult for investigators to extract truly useful information. There are further issues of informational bias that can be attributed to algorithmic bias or to misinformation posted online, intended to obfuscate or exaggerate human rights abuses.By combining a unique multidisciplinary methodology, drawing on socio-legal, computer science, and geospatial analysis methods, this project asks:"To what extent can OSINT be leveraged to contribute more systematically to human rights investigation and documentation? Can natural language processing and geospatial methods for analysing social media content assist in the discovery and analysis processes, and help overcome potential issues of informational bias and misinformation that may arise?"It will:1. Create the first ever overview of the use of OSINT by UN human rights fact-finding missions. Through interviews with members of UN Commissions of Inquiry and human rights investigations (many of whom we have worked with on other projects) and a project workshop, we will identify the barriers and reservations to their use of OSINT. Combining this data with a systematic review of reports produced by these investigations, we will determine the extent to which information gathered through OSINT methods could address some of the informational gaps inherent to traditional investigative methods.2. Develop, in collaboration with human rights organisations, the Knowledge Hub Framework (KHF), a set of core microservices that will provide tools to gather data and carry out specific analytical tasks, such as comparing documents for similarity, identifying place names within free text and mapping them, and assigning weightings and confidence ratings to data sources based on automated crosschecks, validations, and historical accuracies.3. Through the KHF, use natural language processing, text mining, and spatial analysis techniques, combined with legal analysis, in a case study to demonstrate how OSINT-based investigations could be made more systematic. Our case study will focus on The Philippines, where mass human rights violations have allegedly occurred, but which is not currently subject to a UN human rights inquiry, and which has witnessed a proliferation of social media accounts spreading counter-narratives about alleged human rights abuses. In a dedicated workshop, we will demonstrate the prototype KHF to stakeholders. We will later offer training sessions for human rights organisations. The Institute for International Criminal Investigations has agreed to host one such training session in The Hague.As well as the KHF, which will be updated as new functionalities are created, the project will result in three academic journal articles and a Guide to OSINT for Human Rights Organisations. It has the potential to transform human rights fact-finding.