A/HRC/29/37 as an excuse not to engage with such evidence. Verification should be demystified within the international human rights machinery, so that the advantages offered by digital evidence can be more fully embraced. 98. With respect to the dangers of ignorance concerning digital security, it is noteworthy that many Human Rights Council mechanisms encourage individual contact through insecure generic email addresses, with no warnings concerning security or suggestions of alternatives. While offering such contact points is a laudable effort to broaden access to its mechanisms, the Council is arguably failing in its duty of care by failing to adequately warn individuals or groups of the potential risks that they may be taking. 99. Of course, the impression should not be given that the special procedures of the Council are closed off to information from the new data streams discussed in the present report. Indeed, much of the NGO reporting on which special procedures’ communications are based derives information from such sources. However, the fact that the Council is not yet open to weighing such evidence or reporting places it at risk, over the coming years, of isolation from the broader human rights community with which it has done so much to engage in the past. 2. National and international commissions of inquiry 100. Various national investigations have made use of digital evidence. The finding that the death of Ian Tomlinson during a demonstration in London in 2009 was an unlawful killing hinged on a witness video that was tracked down and handed over to the Independent Police Complaints Commission by an investigative reporter. Also, the ongoing inquiry into the shootings at Marikana, South Africa, received ostensibly probative video evidence that the South African Human Rights Commission has had synchronized by a technological expert.56 101. At the international level, OHCHR has partnered with the Operational Satellite Applications Programme of the United Nations, and with various external partners on an ad hoc basis, to use both satellite and video evidence in the work of international commissions of inquiry.57 As discussed above, when combined with other techniques of human rights monitoring, satellite imagery can provide extremely valuable information for inclusion in reporting to the Human Rights Council. 102. The Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea made use of both satellite imagery and clandestinely recorded videos and photographs in order to demonstrate the existence of several political prison camps (see A/HRC/25/63). The Commission relied on the videos and photographs to the extent that they could confirm their authenticity, and, with respect to satellite imagery, on commercially available footage. The Commission noted that higher resolution satellite imagery produced by more technologically advanced States would, almost certainly, have provided further information. Unfortunately, despite requests, those images were not made available to the Commission (see A/HRC/25/CRP.1, para. 60–61). 103. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic has also made use of a certain amount of satellite and digital material, as one might expect 56 57 See the “Written submissions of the South African Human Rights Commission regarding ʻPhase One’” in the Marikana Commission of Inquiry (29 October 2014), www.sahrc.org.za/home/21/ files/SAHRC%20PHASE%20ONE%20FINAL%20WRITTEN%20SUBMISSIONS.pdf. See http://www.unitar.org/unosat/. 19