A/HRC/29/37 over time between chosen witnesses and the project, with the credibility and trust that such a relationship entails.36 73. Besides potentially widening the scope of human rights work, involving civilian witnesses as a crowd could strengthen the effect of human rights advocacy through greater participation and awareness as well as potential corroboration.37 However, there are risks. By publicly mapping information, crowds may jeopardize vulnerable populations. The techniques may also be used against the human rights community, for example to perform “human intelligence tasks” such as matching faces to photographs of protests.38 3. Satellite evidence 74. Satellite footage can have a transformative impact on human rights work. Central to the deterrent effect of satellites is the knowledge that, should a violation occur, somebody is going to use the footage to expose it. For example, earlier this year, fact-finders at Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch undertook “change detection” analysis of satellite images of two towns in north-eastern Nigeria that revealed extensive fire damage. The information was cross-referenced with eyewitness testimonies to establish that the fires were part of militant attacks in which hundreds were killed. Although that linking was important because, on their own, satellite images do little to establish culpability and causality, the case highlights the benefits of remote sensing for hard-to-reach areas.39 75. Satellite evidence can be combined with other digital processes, such as social media mapping, in order to better convey information. Reports on the origins of missile or artillery attacks or the impacts of drone strikes have relied on satellite photography.40 76. At present, much of the satellite imagery relied on for human rights work is owned by commercial operators. This means that, for satellite imagery to be available, there must be a commercial interest in the area and no cloud cover; also, the imagery will tend to be of low resolution. Military-grade satellite imagery has broader coverage and higher resolution, but there is often a reluctance to share information (rather than classified imagery itself) with human rights investigators, even when national security is not at stake. E. Evaluating evidence collected using information and communications technologies 77. The flood of information from civilian witnesses can only have evidentiary potential if the information can be gathered and evaluated. It is therefore important that human rights organizations be able to integrate that information into their traditional methods of research 36 37 38 39 40 14 Patrick Meier, “From crowdsourcing crisis information to crowdseeding conflict zones (updated)”, iRevolutions (10 July 2012), http://irevolution.net/2012/07/10/crowdsourcing-to-crowdseeding/. Molly Beutz Land, “Peer producing human rights”, Alberta Law Review, vol. 46, No. 4 (2009), p. 1115. Jonathan Zittrain, “The Internet creates a new kind of sweatshop”, Newsweek (7 December 2009), www.newsweek.com/internet-creates-new-kind-sweatshop-75751. Christoph Koettl, “The story behind the Boko Haram satellite images”, Amnesty International UK/Blogs (17 January 2015), www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/ether/story-behind-boko-haram-satelliteimages. Bellingcat, “Origin of artillery attacks on Ukrainian military positions in Eastern Ukraine between 14 July 2014 and 8 August 2014” (17 February 2015), www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-andeurope/2015/02/17/origin-of-artillery-attacks/; and Forensic Architecture, “Drone strikes: investigating covert operations through spatial media”, www.forensic-architecture.org/case/dronestrikes/.