Tag Archives: Standards

Data Protection Protocols for Crisis Mapping

Posted on April 11, 2013 | 14 comments

The day after the CrisisMappers 2011 Conference in Geneva, my colleague Phoebe Wynn-Pope organized and facilitated the most important workshop I attended that year. She brought together a small group of seasoned crisis mappers and experts in protection standards. The workshop concluded with a pressing action item: update the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) Professional Standards for Protection Work in order to provide digital humanitarians with expert guidance on protection standards for humani-tarianism in the network age.

My colleague Anahi Ayala and I were invited to provide feedback on the new 20+ page chapter specifically dedicated to data management and new technologies. We added many, many comments and suggestions on the draft. The full report is available here (PDF). Today, thanks to ICRC, I am in Switzerland to give a Keynote on Next Generation Humanitarian Technology for the official launch of the report. The purpose of this blog post is to list the protection protocols that relate most directly to Crisis Mapping &  Digital Humanitarian Response; and to problematize some of these protocols. 

The Protocols

In the preface of the ICRC’s 2013 Edition of the Professional Standards for Protection Work, the report lists three reasons for the updated edition. The first has to do with new technologies:

In light of the rapidly proliferating initiatives to make new uses of information technology for protection purposes, such as satellite imagery, crisis mapping and publicizing abuses and violations through social media, the advisory group agreed to review the scope and language of the standards on managing sensitive information. The revised standards reflect the experiences and good practices of humanitarian and human rights organizations as well as of information & communication technology actors.

The new and most relevant protection standards relating—or applicable to—digital humanitarians are listed below (indented text) together with commentary.

Protection actors must only collect information on abuses and violations when necessary 
for the design or implementation of protection activities. It may not be used for other purposes without additional consent.

A number of Digital Humanitarian Networks such as the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF) only collect crisis information specifically requested by the “Activating Organization,” such as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for example. Volunteer networks like the SBTF are not “protection actors” but rather provide direct support to humanitarian organizations when the latter meet the SBTF’s activation criteria. In terms of what type of information the SBTF collects, again it is the Activating Organization that decides this, not the SBTF. For example, the Libya Crisis Map launched by the SBTF at the request of OCHA displayed categories of information that were decided by the UN team in Geneva.

Protection actors must collect and handle information containing personal details in accordance with the rules and principles of international law and other relevant regional or national laws on individual data protection.

These international, regional and national rules, principles and laws need to be made available to Digital Humanitarians in a concise, accessible and clear format. Such a resource is still missing.

Protection actors seeking information bear the responsibility to assess threats to the persons providing information, and to take necessary measures to avoid negative consequences for those from whom they are seeking information.

Protection actors setting up systematic information collection through the Internet or other media must analyse the different potential risks linked to the collection, sharing or public display of the information and adapt the way they collect, manage and publicly release the information accordingly.

Interestingly, when OCHA activated the SBTF in response to the Libya Crisis, it was the SBTF, not the UN, that took the initiative to formulate a Threat and Risks Mitigation Strategy that was subsequently approved by the UN. Furthermore, unlike other digital humanitarian networks, the Standby Task Force’s  “Prime Directive” is to not interact with the crisis-affected population. Why? Precisely to minimize the risk to those voluntarily sharing information on social media.

Protection actors must determine the scope, level of precision and depth of detail
of the information collection process, in relation to the intended use of the information collected.

Again, this is determined by the protection actor activating a digital humanitarian network like the SBTF.

Protection actors should systematically review the information collected in order to confirm that it is reliable, accurate, and updated.

The SBTF has a dedicated Verification Team that strives to do this. The verification of crowdsourced, user-generated content posted on social media during crises is no small task. But the BBC’s User-Generated Hub (UGC) has been doing just this for 8 years. Meanwhile, new strategies and technologies are under development to facilitate the rapid verification of such content. Also, the ICRC report notes that “Combining and cross-checking such [crowdsourced] information with other sources, including information collected directly from communities and individuals affected, is becoming standard good practice.”

Protection actors should be explicit as to the level of reliability and accuracy of information they use or share.

Networks like the SBTF make explicit whether a report published on a crisis map has been verified or not. If the latter, the report is clearly marked as “Unverified”. There are more nuanced ways to do this, however. I have recently given feedback on some exciting new research that is looking to quantify the probable veracity of user-generated content.

Protection actors must gather and subsequently process protection information in an objective and impartial manner, to avoid discrimination. They must identify and minimize bias that may affect information collection.

Objective, impartial, non-discriminatory and unbiased information is often more a fantasy than reality even with traditional data. Meeting these requirements in a conflict zone can be prohibitively expensive, overly time consuming and/or downright dangerous. This explains why advanced statistical methods dedicated to correcting biases exist. These can and have been applied to conflict and human rights data. They can also be applied to user-generated content on social media to the extent that the underlying demographic & census based information is possible.

To place this into context, Harvard University Professor Gary King, reminded me that the vast majority of medical data is not representative either. Nor is the vast majority of crime data. Does that render these datasets void? Of course not. Please see this post on Demystifying Crowdsourcing: An Introduction to Non-Probability Sampling.

Security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information must be in place prior
to any collection of information, to ensure protection from loss or theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification, in any format in which it is kept.

One of the popular mapping technologies used by digital humanitarian networks is the Ushahidi platform. When the SBTF learned in 2012 that security holes had still not been patched almost a year after reporting them to Ushahidi Inc., the SBTF Core Team made an executive decision to avoid using Ushahidi technology whenever possible given that the platform could be easily hacked. (Just last month, a colleague of mine who is not a techie but a UN practitioner was able to scrape Ushahidi’s entire Kenya election monitoring data form March 2013, which included some personal identifying information). The SBTF has thus been exploring work-arounds and is looking to make greater use of GeoFeedia and Google’s new mapping technology, Stratomap, in future crisis mapping operations.

Protection actors must integrate the notion of informed consent when calling upon the general public, or members of a community, to spontaneously send them information through SMS, an open Internet platform, or any other means of communication, or when using information already available on the Internet.

This is perhaps the most problematic but important protection protocol as far as digital humanitarian work is concerned. While informed consent is absolutely of critical importance, the vast majority of crowdsourced content displayed on crisis maps is user-generated and voluntarily shared on social media. The very act of communicating with these individuals to request their consent not only runs the risk of endangering these individuals but also violates the SBTF’s Prime Directive for the exact same reason. Moreover, interacting with crisis-affected communities may raise expectations of response that digital humanitarians are simply not in position to guarantee. In situations of armed conflict and other situations of violence, conducting individual interviews can put people at risk not only because of the sensitive nature of the information collected, but because mere participation in the process can cause these people to be stigmatized or targeted.

That said, the ICRC does recognize that, “When such consent cannot be realistically obtained, information allowing the identification of victims or witnesses, should only be relayed in the public domain if the expected protection outcome clearly outweighs the risks. In case of doubt, displaying only aggregated data, with no individual markers, is strongly recommended.”

Protection actors should, to the degree possible, keep victims or communities having transmitted information on abuses and violations informed of the action they have taken
on their behalf – and of the ensuing results. Protection actors using information provided
by individuals should remain alert to any negative repercussions on the individuals or communities concerned, owing to the actions they have taken, and take measures to mitigate these repercussions.

Part of this protocol is problematic for the same reason as the above protocol. The very act of communicating with victims could place them in harm’s way. As far as staying alert to any negative repercussions, I believe the more seasoned digital humanitarian networks make this one of their top priorities.

When handling confidential and sensitive information on abuses and violations, protection actors should endeavor when appropriate and feasible, to share aggregated data on the trends they observed.

The purpose of the SBTF’s Analysis Team is precisely to serve this function.

Protection actors should establish formal procedures on the information handling process, from collection to exchange,  archiving or destruction.

Formal procedures to archive & destroy crowdsourced crisis information are largely lacking. Moving forward, the SBTF will defer this responsibility to the Activating Organization.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the ICRC notes that, “When it comes to protection, crowdsourcing can be an extremely efficient way to collect data on ongoing violence and abuses and/or their effects on individuals and communities. Made possible by the wide availability of Internet or SMS in countries affected by violence, crowdsourcing has rapidly gained traction.” To this end,

Although the need for caution is a central message [in the ICRC report], it should in no way be interpreted as a call to avoid sharing information. On the contrary, when the disclosing of protection information is thought to be of benefit to the individuals and communities concerned, it should be shared, as appropriate, with local, regional or national authorities, UN peacekeeping operations, other protection actors, and last but not least with service providers.

This is inline with the conclusions reached by OCHA’s landmark report, which notes that “Concern over the protection of information and data is not a sufficient reason to avoid using new communications technologies in emergencies, but it must be taken into account.” And so, “Whereas the first exercises were conducted without clear procedures to assess and to subsequently limit the risks faced by individuals who participated or who were named, the groups engaged in crisis mapping efforts over the years have become increasingly sensitive to the need to identify & manage these risks” (ICRC 2013).

It is worth recalling that the vast majority of the groups engaged in crisis mapping efforts, such as the SBTF, are first and foremost volunteers who are not only continuing to offer their time, skills and services for free, but are also taking it upon themselves to actively manage the risks involved in crisis mapping—risks that they, perhaps better than anyone else, understand and worry about the most because they are after all at the frontlines of these digital humanitarian efforts. And they do this all on a grand operational budget of $0 (as far as the SBTF goes). And yet, these volunteers continue to mobilize at the request of international humanitarian organizations and are always looking to learn, improve and do better. They continue to change the world for one map at a time.

I have organized a CrisisMappers Webinar on April 17, 2013, featuring presentations and remarks by the lead authors of the new ICRC report. Please join the CrisisMappers list-serve for more information.

Bio

See also:

  • SMS Code of Conduct for Disaster Response (Link)
  • Humanitarian Accountability Handbook (PDF)

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Posted in Crisis Mapping, Crowdsourcing, Social Media

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Stranger than Fiction: A Few Words About An Ethical Compass for Crisis Mapping

Posted on February 12, 2012 | 11 comments

The good people at the Sudan Sentinel Project (SSP), housed at my former “alma matter,” the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), have recently written this curious piece on crisis mapping and the need for an “ethical compass” in this new field. They made absolutely sure that I’d read the piece by directly messaging me via the @CrisisMappers twitter feed. Not to worry, good people, I read your masterpiece. Interestingly enough, it was published the day after my blog post reviewing IOM’s data protection standards.

To be honest, I was actually not going to spend any time writing up a response because the piece says absolutely nothing new and is hardly pro-active. Now, before any one spins and twists my words: the issues they raise are of paramount importance. But if the authors had actually taken the time to speak with their fellow colleagues at HHI, they would know that several of us participated in a brilliant workshop last year which addressed these very issues. Organized by World Vision, the workshop included representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Care International, Oxfam GB, UN OCHA, UN Foundation, Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF), Ushahidi, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) and obviously Word Vision. There were several data protection experts at this workshop, which made the event one of the most important workshops I attended in all of 2011. So a big thanks again to Phoebe Wynn-Pope at World Vision for organizing.

We discussed in-depth issues surrounding Do No Harm, Informed Consent, Verification, Risk Mitigation, Ownership, Ethics and Communication, Impar-tiality, etc. As expected, the outcome of the workshop was the clear need for data protection standards that are applicable for the new digital context we operate in, i.e., a world of social media, crowdsourcing and volunteer geographical informa-tion. Our colleagues at the ICRC have since taken the lead on drafting protocols relevant to a data 2.0 world in which volunteer networks and disaster-affected communities are increasingly digital. We expect to review this latest draft in the coming weeks (after Oxfam GB has added their comments to the document). Incidentally, the summary report of the workshop organized by World Vision is available here (PDF) and highly recommended. It was also shared on the Crisis Mappers Google Group. By the way, my conversations with Phoebe about these and related issues began at this conference in November 2010, just a month after the SBTF launched.

I should confess the following: one of my personal pet peeves has to do with people stating the total obvious and calling for action but actually doing absolutely nothing else. Talk for talk’s sake just makes it seem like the authors of the article are simply looking for attention. Meanwhile, many of us are working on these new data protection challenges in our own time, as volunteers. And by the way, the SSP project is first and foremost focused on satellite imagery analysis and the Sudan, not on crowdsourcing or on social media. So they’re writing their piece as outsiders and, well, are hence less informed as a result—particularly since they didn’t do their homework.

Their limited knowledge of crisis mapping is blatantly obvious throughout the article. Not only do the authors not reference the World Vision workshop, which HHI itself attended, they also seem rather confused about the term “crisis mappers” which they keep using. This is somewhat unfortunate since the Crisis Mappers Network is an offshoot of HHI. Moreover, SSP participated and spoke at last year’s Crisis Mappers Conference—just a few months ago, in fact. One outcome of this conference was the launch of a dedicated Working Group on Security and Privacy, which will now become two groups, one addressing security issues and the other data protection. This information was shared on the Crisis Mappers Google Group and one of the authors is actually part of the Security Working Group.

To this end, one would have hoped, and indeed expected, that the authors would write a somewhat more informed piece about these issues. At the very least, they really ought to have documented some of the efforts to date in this innovative space. But they didn’t and unfortunately several statements they make in their article are, well… completely false and rather revealing at the same time. (Incidentally, the good people at SSP did their best to disuade the SBTF from launching a Satellite Team on the premise that only experts are qualified to tag satellite imagery; seems like they’re not interested in citizen science even though some experts I’ve spoken to have referred to SSP as citizen science).

In any case, the authors keep on referring to “crisis mappers this” and “crisis mappers that” throughout their article. But who exactly are they referring to? Who knows. On the one hand, there is the International Network of Crisis Mappers, which is a loose, decentralized, and informal network of some 3,500 members and 1,500 organizations spanning 150+ countries. Then there’s the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF), a distributed, global network of 750+ volunteers who partner with established organizations to support live mapping efforts. And then, easily the largest and most decentralized “group” of all, are all those “anonymous” individuals around the world who launch their own maps using whatever technologies they wish and for whatever purposes they want. By the way, to define crisis mapping as mapping highly volatile and dangerous conflict situations is really far from being accurate either. Also, “equating” crisis mapping with crowdsourcing, which the authors seem to do, is further evidence that they are writing about a subject that they have very little understanding of. Crisis mapping is possible without crowdsourcing or social media. Who knew?

Clearly, the authors are confused. They appear to refer to “crisis mappers” as if the group were a legal entity, with funding, staff, administrative support and brick-and-mortar offices. Furthermore, and what the authors don’t seem to realize, is that much of what they write is actually true of the formal professional humanitarian sector vis-a-vis the need for new data protection standards. But the authors have obviously not done their homework, and again, this shows. They are also confused about the term “crisis mapping” when they refer to “crisis mapping data” which is actually nothing other than geo-referenced data. Finally, a number of paragraphs in the article have absolutely nothing to do with crisis mapping even though the authors seem insinuate otherwise. Also, some of the sensationalism that permeates the article is simply unnecessary and poor taste.

The fact of the matter is that the field of crisis mapping is maturing. When Dr. Jennifer Leaning and I co-founded and co-directed HHI’s Program on Crisis Mapping and Early Warning from 2007-2009, the project was very much an exploratory, applied-research program. When Dr. Jen Ziemke and I launched the Crisis Mappers Network in 2009, we were just at the beginning of a new experiment. The field has come a long way since and one of the consequences of rapid innovation is obviously the lack of any how-to-guide or manual. These certainly need to be written and are being written.

So, instead of  stating the obvious, repeating the obvious, calling for the obvious and making embarrassing factual errors in a public article (which, by the way, is also quite revealing of the underlying motives), perhaps the authors could actually have done some research and emailed the Crisis Mappers Google Group. Two of the authors also have my email address; one even has my private phone number; oh, and they could also have DM’d me on Twitter like they just did.

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Posted in Crisis Mapping, Crowdsourcing, Humanitarian Technologies, Satellite Imagery, Social Media

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On Crowdsourcing, Crisis Mapping and Data Protection Standards

Posted on February 5, 2012 | 12 comments

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) just published their official Data Protection Manual. This report is hugely informative and should be required reading. At the same time, the 150-page report does not mention social media even once. This is perfectly understandable given IOM’s work, but there is no denying that disaster-affected communities are becoming more digitally-enabled—and thus increasingly the source of important, user-generated information. Moreover, it is difficult to ascertain exactly how to apply all of IOM’s Data Protection Principles to this new digital context and the work of the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF).

The IOM Manual recommends that a risk-benefit assessment be conducted prior to data collection. This means weighing the probability of harm against the anticipated benefits and ensuring that the latter significantly outweigh the potential risks. But IOM explains that “the risk–benefit assessment is not a technical evaluation that is valid under all circumstances. Rather, it is a value judgement that often depends on various factors, including, inter alia, the prevailing social, cultural and religious attitudes of the target population group or individual data subject.”

The Manual also states that data collectors should always put themselves in the shoes of the data subject and consider: “How would a reasonable person, in the position of data subject, react to the data collection and data processing practices?” Again, this a value judgment rather than a technical evaluation. Applying this consistently across IOM will no doubt be a challenge.

The IOM Principles, which form the core of the manual, are as follows (keep in mind that they are obviously written with IOM’s mandate explicitly in mind):

1. Lawful & Fair Collection
2. Specified and Legitimate Purpose
3. Data quality
4. Consent
5. Transfer to Third Parties
6. Confidentiality
7. Access and Transparency
8. Data Security
9. Retention of Personal Data
10. Application of the Principles
11. Ownership of Personal Data
12. Oversight, Compliance & Internal Remedies
13. Exceptions

Take the first principle, which states that “Personal data must be obtained by lawful and fair means with the knowledge or consent of the data subject.” What does this mean when the data is self-generated and voluntarily placed in the public domain? This question also applies to a number of other principles including “Consent” and “Confidentiality”. In the section on “Consent”, the manual lists various ways that consent can be acquired. Perhaps the most a propos to our discussion is “Implicit Consent: no oral declaration or written statement is obtained, but the action or inaction of the data subjects un-equivocally indicates voluntary participation in the IOM project.”

Indeed, during the Ushahidi-Haiti Crisis Mapping Project (UHP), a renowned professor and lawyer at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy was consulted to determine whether or not text messages from the disaster-affected community could be added to a public map). This professor stated there was “Implicit Consent” to map these text messages. (Incidentally, experts at Harvard’s Berkman Center were also consulted on this question at the time).

The first IOM principle further stipulates that “communication with data subjects should be encouraged at all stages of the data collection process.” But what if this communication poses a danger to the data subject? The manual further states that “Personal data should be collected in a safe and secure environment and data controllers should take all necessary steps to ensure that individual vulnerabilities and potential risks are not enhanced.” What if data subjects are not in a safe and secure environment but nevertheless voluntarily share potentially important information on social media channels?

Perhaps the only guidance provided by IOM on this question is as follows: “Data controllers should choose the most appropriate method of data collection that will enhance efficiency and protect the confidentiality of the personal data collected.” But again, what if the data subject has already volunteer information with their personal data and placed this information in the public domain?

The third principle, “Data Quality” is obviously key but the steps provided to ensure accuracy are difficult to translate within the context of crowdsourced information from the social media space. The same is true of several IOM Data Protection Principles. But some are certainly applicable with modification. Take the seventh principle on “Access and Transparency” which recommends that complaint procedures should be relatively straightforward so that data subjects can easily request to rectify or delete content previously collected from them.

“Data Security”, the eighth principle, is also directly applicable. For example, data from social media could be classified according the appropriate level of sensitivity and treated accordingly. During the response to the Haiti earthquake, for example, we kept new information on the location of orphans confidential, sharing this only with trusted colleagues in the humanitarian community. “Separating personal data from non-personal data” is another procedure that can (and has) been used in crisis mapping projects. This is for me an absolutely crucial point. Depending on the situation, we need to separate information mana-gement systems that contain data with personal identifiers from crisis mapping platforms. Obviously, the former thus need to be more secure. Encryption is also proposed for data security and applicable to crisis mapping.

The tenth IOM principle, i.e., “The Application of the Principles”, provides additional guidance on how to implement data protection and security. For example, the manual describes three appropriate methods for depersonalizing data: data-coding;  pseudonymization; and anonymization. Each of these could be applied to crisis mapping projects.

To conclude, the IOM Data Protection Manual is an important contribution and some of the principles described therein can be applied to crowdsourcing and crisis mapping. I look forward to folding these into the workflows and standard operating procedures of the SBTF (with guidance from the SBTF’s Advisory Board and other experts). There still remains a gap, however, vis-a-vis those IOM principles that are not easily customizable for the context in which the SBTF operates. There is also an issue vis-a-vis the Terms of Service of many social media platforms with respect to privacy and data protection standards.

This explains why I am actively collaborating with a major humanitarian organi-zation to explore the development of appropriate data protection standards for crowdsourcing crisis information in the context of social media. Many humanitarian organizations are struggling with these exact same issues. Yes, these organizations have long had data privacy and protection protocols in place but these were designed for a world devoid of social media. One major social media company is also looking to revisit its terms of service agreements given the increasing relevance of their platform in humanitarian response. The challenge, for all, will be to strike the right balance between innovation and regulation.

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Posted in Crisis Mapping, Crowdsourcing, Social Media

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