In this article we provide a technical exploration of the potential of artificial intelligence for large-scale analysis of satellite data to detect the destruction of human settlements, with a case study on Sudan’s Darfur region.

Many disinformation or malware campaigns rely on a computer architecture based on several servers and domains, and even if they often try to hide the infrastructure, it has to be accessible online. Investigating these infrastructure links is often a good way to get a broader view of the campaign. This is one of the tools we use in our investigations at Amnesty Tech.

A first step in a community’s recovery after a traumatic event, such as an armed conflict, mass disaster, or pandemic, is to account for and identify all the lives lost in the tragedy. In many cases these individuals are buried in mass graves that may be either unmarked or deliberately concealed.  

Tear Gas: An Investigation is the result of 18 months of research, documentation and analysis by Amnesty International. The multimedia site looks into what tear gas is, how it is used and documents scores of cases of its misuse by security forces worldwide, often resulting in severe injuries or death. As most protests today are filmed and shared on social media by participants or observers, we were able to collate hundreds of videos and – using an interactive map – highlight some of the worst instances of tear gas misuse in 22 countries and territories on five continents.

Both digital and physical spaces have been occupied by the protests against excessive police violence taking place across the USA. Across partisan lines, US residents have gathered to mourn the killing of George Floyd, for which a police officer has been charged with murder, and to call for justice and racial equality. Whether you are speaking out on the streets or on social media, digital privacy has never been more important for the preservation and advocacy of our basic human rights. Of particular concern is how police can use digital surveillance tactics to undermine our rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and peaceful assembly.

The report ‘Nowhere is safe for us’ documents attacks on schools and hospitals in towns and villages in Idlib, western Aleppo, and north-western Hama governorates in Syria from December 2019 to March 2020. These attacks, carried out by Syrian and Russian government forces, entailed a myriad of serious violations of international humanitarian law.

Not only has COVID-19 brought challenges to our health and our economy, it has also tested our universal system of human rights. Governments around the world have imposed measures restricting various rights, such as freedom of movement, to combat the spread of the virus, ranging from limits on group gatherings to strict nationwide lockdowns. Such emergency measures may be justified during the current public health crisis, provided that they meet the criteria of legality, necessity and proportionality established by international law and are enforced in a non-discriminatory manner. Unfortunately, Amnesty International has observed an increase in human rights violations by governments and law enforcement officials across the world, many of which have been visually documented and publicized on social media platforms. 

Did you know that most social media tools strip out metadata from images we share, as well as compressing them? While there are good privacy and optimization reasons to do this, it makes it very hard for open source investigators to determine who is pictured in a photo, what they are doing (and why), as well as where and when it was taken. In the absence of reliable metadata, investigators resort to time-consuming content analysis and geo-location using features in the image. But it doesn’t have to be like this.

In October 2019 mass protests erupted in Baghdad and across southern Iraq. Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab was asked to use open source techniques to support the organization’s Iraq research team to investigate the crackdown against protesters. This soon included videos of the most gruesome deaths: protesters being killed with 40mm military-style grenades embedded in their skulls. 

Satellite imagery has become a popular tool for research and investigations in more and more fields beyond remote sensing science. Investigators and journalists are using it to pinpoint the location of events to better illustrate what is happening in the world. People are constantly finding new applications for the hundreds of satellites documenting the earth on a daily basis. 

On 1 October 2019, mass protests broke out in Baghdad and several southern Iraqi cities over corruption and failed government policies, and they continue today. Throughout this crisis, Amnesty International has documented security forces using excessive and, in some cases, lethal force to disperse protesters. The consistent question I receive from journalists and researchers concerns the weapons used by the security forces against the demonstrators. There have been a variety of novel weapons employed, nearly all of which are inappropriate as policing tools.

The Crisis Evidence Lab just celebrated the publication of the first-ever textbook providing background, insights and practical tips for human rights investigators in the open source community.