A/HRC/29/37 methodologies, otherwise advocacy organizations and civilian witnesses will find it difficult to take full advantage of existing accountability mechanisms. As noted above, technological evidence must not be seen as the endpoint — without meaningful accountability it is just more sound and fury — and it is therefore vital that official channels designed to facilitate accountability for human rights violations be open to this type of evidence. 93. The broader United Nations community has invested in harnessing the potential of ICTs, particularly in the area of crisis information management (A/69/517). The United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology has, in conjunction with the ICT4Peace Foundation, coordinated the Crisis Information Management Advisory Group, which has become a forum to discuss technological developments in humanitarian aid and crisis information management. 52 The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reviewed the impact of ICT-enabled networks on humanitarian relief and has, since then, undertaken a number of collaborative projects to take advantage of the power of the crowd.53 Meanwhile, the Global Pulse project is a major undertaking on the humanitarian impact of big data. 54 94. In 2014, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations requested the Expert Panel on Technology and Innovation in United Nations Peacekeeping to recommend ways in which technology and innovation could enhance their operational effectiveness. The panel issued its final report in February 2015,55 in which it recommended that, among other things, the Security Council create a special technical mission to use technical audio, visual, monitoring and surveillance technologies to inform decision-making. 95. The United Nations human rights mechanisms have not completely ignored the advances of ICTs. Several of them have created successful social media presences as part of their promotional engagement strategies and campaigns to reach millions of users worldwide. Although the promotional uses of digital ICTs are significant, the Special Rapporteur will now consider the engagement of various international and regional human rights mechanisms that use ICTs for fact-finding and accountability. 1. Special procedures and other mechanisms of the Human Rights Council 96. This report was in part motivated by the Special Rapporteur’s investigation of video evidence of executions at the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka (see A/HRC/17/28/Add.1, appendix). In that instance, the Special Rapporteur was able to provide impetus to a broad coalition pressing for accountability by independently seeking out technical experts to comment on the metadata of the videos, the ballistics of the weapons shown in the videos and the movement of the bodies. Given the rapid developments in the field, it is quite possible that such expertise is easier to find today, however, the capacity of OHCHR has not changed greatly. Special procedures mandate holders would benefit from in-house technical knowledge for selecting the best experts for specific tasks. 97. As noted above, the verification of user-generated content is fundamental to reaping the advantages of ICTs in terms of broadening access to and the scope of human rights work. However, it is important that verification not be viewed as a barrier to the use of digital evidence. The technical difficulty of verification is sometimes exaggerated and used 52 53 54 55 18 See http://ict4peace.org/crisis-information-management-advisory-group-cimag-retreat/. OCHA Policy and Studies Series, Humanitarianism in the Network Age: including world humanitarian data and trends 2012, (2013), https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/ WEB%20Humanitarianism%20in%20the%20Network%20Age%20vF%20single.pdf. See http://www.unglobalpulse.org/. See http://www.performancepeacekeeping.org/offline/download.pdf.