Designing recordkee** systems for transitional justice and peace: ‘on the ground’ experiences and practices relating to organizations supporting conflict-affected peoples

Abstract

This article presents survey results examining the design and implementation of recordkee** systems for organizations supporting conflict-affected individuals displaced from their homes, lands, and property (HLP). The study highlights the potential of digital systems to overcome limitations of legacy HLP recordkee**, but also addresses the risks associated with technology in vulnerable contexts. Emphasizing the connection between records and personal identity, the authors advocate for recordkee** systems that consider the needs, rights, and dignity of displaced people. Drawing on participatory and rights-based approaches, a framework for supporting HLP claims through system design is proposed. The findings offer insights into tailoring such an approach for conflict-affected contexts, stressing the importance of technological upgrades and careful design considerations to prevent harm. The article aims to contribute to the development of effective recordkee** systems for displaced populations, calling for further research and collaboration in this field.

Appendix 1: Relevant initiatives utilizing novel technological capabilities for recordkee** in conflict contexts

Several civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations, academic laboratories, and collectives are experimenting with the uses and affordances of novel technologies to address the challenges of HLP recordkee** and archival preservation in conflict- affected contexts. This appendix, though non-exhaustive, uncritically presents several of these initiatives, which combine technologies with archival workflows. A critical review of these projects remains as future work.

Backup Ukraine: https://learn.poly.cam/backup-ukraine (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

Backup Ukraine is a UNESCO project designed to preserve national identity and cultural heritage. It combines traditional methods of cultural preservation with forms of capture enabled by new technological capabilities using Polycam’s 3D reconstruction technology mobile application, leveraging LiDAR and photogrammetry. Using this technology, made free in Ukraine, civilians can capture 3D models of buildings, monuments, local meeting places, and other culturally significant items and spaces. These ‘captures’ are reconstructed in the app. Every capture with Ukrainian coordinates is sent to the Backup Ukraine database, an open, secure online ‘archive’ where they are available to view via a Creative Commons license.

EyCon: Visual AI and Early Conflict Photography: https://eycon.hypotheses.org/ (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

The EyCon Project (Early Conflict AI and Visual Photography 1890–1918) harnesses AI and data modeling tools to analyze a corpus of thousands of historical photographs documenting armed violence. The project aims to increase the usability and discoverability of this material, which has been scattered across disconnected repositories due to the siloed nature of institutional digitization efforts. AI techniques for historical inquiry and data enrichment include the creation of computational image segmentation protocols; the re-training of AI models with images modified to mimic transformations produced by photomechanical reproduction in the early photographic process, improving similarity recognition results; and computational methods for pose estimation in the photographs.

Forensic Architecture: https://forensic-architecture.org/ (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

Forensic architecture is a multidisciplinary research group at Goldsmiths that is building a new genre of architecture that takes into account and informs legal and political processes—reconstructing scenes of crimes and human rights violations. They develop, disseminate, and employ new techniques for evidence-gathering and presentation that aim to support human rights investigations and communities exposed to ‘state violence.’ Their investigations utilize a number of new methodologies and technological capabilities, including machine learning, remote sensing, data mining, cartographic regression, and virtual reality. Often, their development and deployment of digital tools and models is used in conjunction with witness testimony and interviews to develop stronger legal evidence.

Past case studies have included a reconstruction of Sheikh Jarrah, done through 3D modeling, OSINT, and geolocation, which reveals how Palestinian families are being forcibly displaced, and the development of a VR tool that was used to collect and cross-reference testimony about the beating of Faisal Al-Natsheh. Forensic architecture’s evidence has been presented in national and international courtrooms as well as in special tribunals.

Mnemonic Digital Evidence Workflow: https://mnemonic.org/en/about/methods (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

Mnemonic’s Digital Evidence Workflow combines open-source investigation techniques and tools with archival strategies for the preservation of digital evidence. Digital evidence, in this context, often refers to verified user-generated content captured on phones or cameras during conflict. Mnemonic’s workflow aims to ensure that this verified content is publicly accessible for journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders for purposes of advocacy, accountability, and criminal case-building. To accomplish this, Mnemonic facilitates the collection, preservation, processing, verification, and investigation of digital evidence in ‘a forensically sound manner,’ using available open-source tools. Those tools include Diwan, which securely backs up user-generated online content on external backend servers across the world; Enigio Time, which hashes and timestamps preserved evidence and ensures data integrity, and VFRAME, a machine learning software that uses object detection algorithms to flag video content and add metadata to videos.

Mnemonic’s workflow is currently in use at the Syrian, Yemeni, Sudanese, and Ukrainian Archives, which preserve vulnerable digital information about human rights violations, acts of resistance, and other at-risk, open-source materials. The digital evidence preserved at all four archives is meant to be subject to a strict chain of custody that ensures that the evidence is not tampered with, and that modifications to any piece of evidence are recorded. Though there is no blanket standard for ‘admissibility,’ Mnemonic claims that the chain of custody ensures archival authenticity and primes the evidence for usage in transitional justice and accountability cases.

Sudanese Archive: https://sudanesearchive.org/en/about (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

The Sudanese Archive supports a network of decentralized community archives and activities across Sudan via training, knowledge, and resources. Recent projects have included the Coup Files Database, the most comprehensive open-source archive of human rights abuses and violations since the 2021 coup, and an investigation into acts of violence against demonstrators in Bahri and Al Siteen.

Syrian Archive: https://syrianarchive.org/ (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

The Syrian Archive collects and verifies visual documentation of human rights violations and atrocities committed during the Syrian Civil War. It includes documentation on abuses such as torture, extrajudicial killings, and chemical attacks. The Archive’s recent project ‘Re-humanization of the Syrian digital memory’ focuses on how civilians’ documentary practices and experiences have significantly contributed to the production of multi-source digital testimonies.

Ukrainian Archive: https://ukrainianarchive.org/en/about/ (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

Since March of 2022, the Ukrainian Archive has been working to create a digital memory concerning Russia’s criminal aggression, the human rights violations committed during the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the war crimes committed on Ukrainian soil. They aim to use this information to build a new chapter of Ukrainian history through the support of transitional justice efforts, and are currently also providing capacity- building training on the ground in Ukraine. Recent projects include an investigation into an attack on Izium City Central Hospital in Kharkiv oblast, which was damaged from a direct hit by a munition.

Yemeni Archive: https://yemeniarchive.org/ (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

Recent investigations include the collection of open-source materials about the bombing of a water rig in Sana’a governorate and the verification of those materials.

R-Archive: https://datarella.com/the-immutable-rohingya-archive/ (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

The R-Archive, or Rohingya Archive, is a decentralized digital heritage archive that utilizes blockchain technology to preserve the cultural memory, heritage, and endangered memory of the Rohingya people. The Rohingya people have been forcibly displaced and stripped of citizenship by the government of Myanmar; however, documentary evidence that proves their property ownership, citizenship, and professional qualifications in Myanmar could support claims to their historical presence in the country. The R-Archive utilizes decentralized encryption to preserve relevant documents by allowing, through a web app, the uploading of securely encrypted documents. These are stored as data on Arweave, a decentralized storage protocol. Arweave is open, permissionless, and claims to store the data permanently at low-cost. The use of this technology aims to ensure that documentary evidence cannot be removed, destroyed, or discredited in order to help the Rohingya return to Myanmar, regain social standing and political capital, and flourish culturally.

Starling Lab: https://www.starlinglab.org/ (Last Accessed June 26, 2023)

Stanford University’s Starling Lab leverages the power of cryptographic verification with the goal of ‘establishing trust in the digital records of human history.’ Starling’s Framework for Data Integrity addresses the issue of authenticating user-generated and crowdsourced digital content in three steps. The first step, Capture, involves utilizing a combination of hardware and decentralized software to create a chain of custody from any device to a digital platform; the image captured is paired with metadata from sensors on the device, cryptographically hashed, and given a content identifier. For the second step, Store, the data are replicated onto decentralized storage nodes hosted by IPFS and Filecoin, a decentralized storage provider. For the final step, Verify, experts analyze the content and store certifications attesting to document authenticity on an distributed ledger. The Starling Framework also has a hash/certification management system that allows experts to verify footage. Each organization to which the expert belongs can then publish on their own distributed ledger to create a knowledge graph that can be accessed by users on any platform. Using these decentralized and cryptographic tools allows the Starling Lab to establish the authenticity and origin of digital content and submit it, as they have for cases of war crimes in Ukraine, to legal courts.