To say that mobile technologies, social media and increased connectivity have had a huge impact on human rights investigation is nothing new. Human rights organisations have been using new technologies in their work for decades. Researchers and activists have set up new workflows, we have processes to verify that an image depicts what we are told it is, and the human rights community has considered how we to protect those depicted in the imagery we discover. While much has been written about these changes, little consideration has been given to how such work has affected human rights investigators themselves. There is little discussion as to how organisations need to address the mental health of investigators based at their headquarters in London or New York or Geneva. How do organizations build resilience against vicarious trauma amongst their staff working not on the physical front line, but on the digital front line?
It can be dangerous or difficult to enter some countries to conduct investigation.
Traditionally, human rights investigation is conducted in the field. Ideally, of course, this is still the case. However, it can be dangerous or difficult to enter some countries to conduct investigation. The availability of cheap mobile images sensors and improved network connections today means that human rights investigation can be done from the relative safety of head offices. Within this progress lies a big problem for the investigator. Videos and photographs depicting human rights violations or humanitarian crises in far-off places are often captured on the mobile phones of the people who are themselves the victims of the possible abuses or humanitarian crises. They are captured haphazardly with the goal of raising awareness of their plight. They require verification—and frequently depict the immediate raw aftermath of a violent event, such as massacres in the Syrian conflict, or extra-judicial killings in Nigeria.
