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by BENEFICENT TECHNOLOGY INC

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Project Details

Pioneering Data Initiative for Syrian Human Rights and International Justice

Benetech and the Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford are spearheading an initiative to tackle an evolving, generational challenge: How do we document, and prove, violations of international human rights law in a Facebook & YouTube-immersed world? On one hand, social media and video-sharing platforms offer the promise of wider access to truth, and the ability for millions to stand as witnesses to atrocities committed across the world. On the other hand, the world's institutions of international justice, like the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, have had difficulty navigating the digital deluge of data. Equipped primarily with old-school investigators and analysts, these institutions are unprepared to tackle situations like those unfolding in Syria, Libya, Myanmar, and elsewhere.

Benetech has mounted a two-pronged effort to address this challenge. First, Benetech has invested heavily in strengthening the capacity of both (a) the International Criminal Court and (b) the United Nation's International, Independent, and Impartial Mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecutions of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed in Syria ("the Syria Mechanism"). Benetech has helped these institutions hire experts with new skill sets, and has helped them transform their organizations, and information systems, to adapt to new realities and challenges.

But that is not enough. Some abilities remain outside the capacity of these institutions. That is why, together with Stanford, Benetech seeks to launch the Syrian Human Rights Accountability Lab.

The concept is this: The Syrian Human Rights Accountability Lab would bring together experts, and, importantly, students, from a variety of disciplines, including computer science, data science, law, journalism, and political science. The Lab would, among other tasks:
(1) create a set of tools and processes to sift and navigate the large sets of video, photos, and documents already collected by human rights defenders worldwide;
(2) partner specifically with the Syria Mechanism and the International Criminal Court to develop protocols for the ingestion of structured data from civil society with assistance from the Lab;
(3) act as a liaison between the Syria Mechanism and the International Criminal Court and the larger "Open Source Investigation" communities, including tasking work back to those communities when appropriate (e.g., the Werfalli case);
(4) enlist the help of the global pro bono lawyer and legal academic communities, focusing their resources on the resolution of several specific legal issues with direct relevance to digital data as evidence that have yet to be addressed in international jurisprudence.

Regarding the computer-science related tasks: Several specific challenges, of varying degrees of difficulty, present themselves immediately. The first task is what to make of the 100 or 200 civil society organizations that have collected videos, photos, and documents related to the Syria conflict. There are hundreds of thousands of documents, more than the Court or the Syria Mechanism can review on their own -- an estimated 2 petabytes of data stored on servers around the world. The team has a strategy for how to approach this challenge, but there is much we don't know. We invite the computer science community to assist, knowing that there are many possibilities for cutting-edge research, including publication opportunities, as we apply machine learning, computer vision, pattern recognition, and geolocation tools to these heterogeneous data sets.
The possibilities for collaboration across the tech and human rights communities are exciting. This is truly the next frontier in international human rights accountability.

Benetech and Stanford to Launch Human Rights Accountability Lab
Stanford University joins Benetech, Amnesty International, and others to engage students in innovative human rights research to fight disinformation and impunity

Background: The field of open source investigations.
As digital data proliferates, human rights investigations increasingly rely on open source information - data collected from publicly available sources, including, but not limited to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube - to identify, document, and verify violations of human rights or international humanitarian law. For example, the near ubiquitous nature of cellphones combined with easy access to video-sharing platforms means human rights violations can be easily recorded in real time. Moreover, widespread access to software like Google Earth allows researchers to comb through global satellite imagery to look for evidence of mass violence or other damage. Unfortunately, sophisticated agents of authoritarian regimes are able to manipulate those very tools to sow distrust and suspicion. With so many sources of disparate and often conflicting information, the human rights community is evermore in need of a cadre of highly trained researchers across a variety of skillsets to ensure accountability for those committing heinous human rights abuses and violating international law.
Stanford University's WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice aims to help build and equip the next generation of investigators through the launch of the Human Rights Accountability Lab. The Handa Center will partner with Benetech, Amnesty International, and Eyewitness Media Hub on this endeavor as the newest member of a global network of university-based teams called the Digital Verification Corps, which includes the University of California, Berkeley; University of Pretoria; University of Toronto; and University of Essex.
With training from world-class open source investigation experts and continued guidance from Handa Center leadership, students in the Human Rights Accountability Lab will learn to employ sophisticated techniques to verify the authenticity, location, and time of publicly available data such as videos, photos, and satellite imagery of alleged human rights abuses, and will then compile that information in clear, transparent, fully cited reports.
"The Handa Center always takes an interdisciplinary approach to equipping a new generation of leaders with the knowledge and skills necessary to protect and promote human rights and dignity for all," said David Cohen, director of Stanford University's Handa Center. "The Human Rights Accountability Lab will be an innovative new medium for engaging students from across the university - from computer science to history to symbolic systems - toward a common goal of promoting accountability of the rule of law more broadly."
With an eye on impact and accountability, the Lab's work will make a critical contribution to global efforts to both uncover and analyze real evidence of human rights abuses as well as combat misinformation.
"Open source investigations are the cutting edge of journalism, human rights documentation, and transitional justice," said Keith Hiatt, vice president of Benetech's Human Rights Program. "This Lab will train the next generation of human rights leaders by immersing them in real human rights accountability work."

OBJECTIVE: Stanford University students fight impunity, disinformation, and "fake news" by verifying open source data relevant to mass human rights violations as part of a coordinated, international network of universities

IMPACT:
● Amnesty International's Digital Verification Corps: New networks and methods of human rights research
● In the Firing Line: How Amnesty's Digital Verification Corps changed official narratives through open source investigation
● Amnesty International's Digital Verification Corps at UC Berkeley corroborated allegations of mass killings in Burundi in 2016


LEADERSHIP:
● WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Stanford University:
Jessie Brunner, Acting Associate Director
● Benetech: Keith Hiatt, Vice President, Human Rights Program;
Founder, Human Rights Investigation Lab at UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center
● Amnesty International: Scott Edwards and Christoph Koettl, Senior Researchers
● Eyewitness Media Hub and First Draft News: Sam Dubberley, Founder


CONTACTS:

Jessie Brunner, Handa Center
Acting Associate Director
jbrunner@stanford.edu
+1 650-736-7622

Jennifer Kane, Benetech
Director of Engaged Giving
jenniferk@benetech.org
+1 650-644-3400



Tuesday, Dec 31, 2019

480 S California Ave Ste 201,
PALO ALTO,
California 94306-1609
United States.

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