FOSS4G NA 2024

Although open GIS data has been used for decades, it is currently having its moment within the human rights and international criminal investigation fields. Aerial photography was one of the first applications of GIS in a conflict setting, when used in World War I to gather intelligence on troop movements and artillery placement. In WWII, GIS was used to prove the existence of Nazi extermination camps. These photos were later made public, sparking outrage across the world. Fast forward to the American invasion of Iraq, satellite imagery was used to try and find evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Nearly twenty years ago, Amnesty International historically first used satellite imagery to expose Zimbabwean dictator Mugabe’s large-scale demolitions of housing settlements. Today, satellite imagery, maps, and other open GIS data are used extensively by human rights monitors and war crimes investigators for advocacy and accountability efforts.

Geospatial programs like ArcGIS and imagery vendors such as Maxar are accessible to the public, but they come along with a hefty financial barrier, especially for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and volunteer projects. However, open sources have toppled this barrier and have significantly increased accessibility. Yet, many individuals are unaware of the vast amount of resources available or have not considered what some may see as ‘unorthodox’ applications of open GIS data.

Programs such as Google Earth, NASA Fire Information Resource Management System (FIRMS), and Sentinel Hub revolutionized “citizen” investigation of human rights violations, war crimes, and more. In one volunteer project, we used these tools to document the extensive use of fire to destroy hundreds of Rohingya villages in Rakhine state, Myanmar from 2015-2019. Using before and after imagery, coupled with historical NASA FIRMS fire data, we were able to demonstrate a campaign of concerted destruction which may amount to, or contribute to, genocide of the Rohingya people. United Nations Investigative Mechanisms, NGOs, and courts have used this data to advocate for accountability. It is hoped that in the near future more evidence of this nature will be used by the International Criminal Court to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is already being used to an extent and I imagine the prevalence of open data will make their, and other investigations, easier by having the financial barrier removed as well as having other organizations contribute, easing the burden of investigation.

In my very first volunteer project, we used Google Earth to discover and document every detention facility in Tibet and other areas with large Tibetan populations, such as Qinghai and Sichuan Provinces in China. When additional information about a detention facility existed online, we used other GIS data for geolocation, or finding the precise location of a facility. Very little information exists on the facilities, largely due to censorship by China, but when photos did exist, verification was needed in order to corroborate information. We had found a Baidu photo from inside a facility, which showed a mountain with a distinct road or trail in the background. The photo did come along with a location, so using that as a starting point, the hiking trail app AllTrails was used to confirm the trail on the mountain and Peak Visor, a database app of mountains, was used to confirm the mountain’s location and profile. I wrote the first guide on how to use outdoor apps AllTrails and Peak Visor for geolocation.

In this presentation, I will use the above mentioned tools to demonstrate how open GIS data was used in these projects. Additionally, how it can be used for other human rights and accountability efforts such as mapping human migration, internally displaced peoples (IDP) camps, attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, or the use of fire to destroy villages as collective punishment which is illegal under international humanitarian law. International organizations now routinely use remote sensing and other GIS data for human rights related issues such as environmental monitoring, destruction in conflict, or searching for mass graves. National and international courts use GIS data in legal cases as potential evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. More and more international organizations and non-governmental organizations are heavily relying on open GIS data, and it appears this trend will continue to expand in the coming years, particularly as open source technology makes the work of holding perpetrators to account more accessible.