RightsCon Toronto 2018

In this panel we’ll discuss the legal basis for the right to record, the ethics of
using and sharing perpetratror video and propaganda, and how companies
are handling this material, as well as highlight ways individuals and
organizations are fighting for this right.

This is more timely than ever, as video occupies more and more space
in human rights work. In 2017, video shifted public opinion in vast
ways, and even led to public reckonings for police and military
officers. Videos of police violence in favelas led to unprecedented
charges against military police in Rio de Janeiro. Police Officer
Michael Slager, who shot African-American Walter Scott in his back as
he ran away and was caught on a cellphone, pled guilty in a civil
rights case. And the ICC issued its first ever arrest warrant based
only on videos on social media. International human rights law
supports the principle that people have the right to record public
officials carrying out their duties in public . But domestic laws in
countries around the world make recording the police, military, and
even legislatures difficult, if not illegal. Even in places where the
right is protected, such as South Africa and the United States, people
regularly face intimidation, arrest, physical violence, and
destruction of their footage, photos, and devices.

This is partly why so-called “perpetrator video”- footage of abuses
created by the perpetrators themselves- is becoming increasingly
important for the International Criminal Court and other war crimes
prosecutions. But these videos are falling victim to underresourced
content enforcement teams and overzealous machine learning in even
greater numbers than eyewitness video and news purposefully created to
show abuses.

International law supports the right to record. And international
bodies are increasingly calling for human rights videos on public
platforms to be preserved. But are these videos coming from? And will
they keep coming? Will the right people have access to them? This
panel will examine these questions- and what happens next.