Cameras Everywhere Report 2011 - Key Challenge

Information Overload, Authentication And Preservation

With more video material coming directly to the public from a wider range of sources, it is increasingly urgent to find ways to rapidly verify or trust such information. Alongside more manual, forensic techniques of verification, technology-driven initiatives are underway to provide technical verification and digital chain-of-custody footage, and to help underpin the use of video in evidentiary, legal, media and archival contexts. However, significant questions remain over how to vouch for authenticity, protect safety, and communicate the original intention of human rights footage. Civil society organizations may need to develop common information standards or shared protocols –or adapt them from journalism.

As the store of human rights content grows, curating and aggregating it in ways that are clear and appealing becomes a major challenge. In addition, ensuring that human rights video remains persistently available is important for awareness, advocacy and justice – and commercial organisations cannot be relied upon to do this. Neither is it easy for individual users of commercial platforms and technology to understand how to back up their human rights content, especially in crisis situations.

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