The war in Ukraine has become one of the most comprehensively documented conflicts in history, thanks to the widespread use of social media. The Ukrainian people have been able to swiftly disseminate media capturing human rights abuses committed by Russia.
Simultaneously, Russian forces have utilized social media to distribute disturbing footage showcasing human rights violations and war crimes. This dual dynamic presents a formidable challenge to Ukrainian organizations and NGOs dedicated to investigating human rights abuses and war crimes perpetrated by Russia.
Truth Hounds, a highly reputable Ukrainian NGO, is one such organization that Paliscope has been actively supporting. This human rights watchdog and investigative body collaborates closely with Ukrainian prosecutors and law enforcement agencies.
The challenges confronting the Truth Hounds and other investigative entities in Ukraine are multi-faceted. One immediate hurdle lies in the sheer volume of data and information accessible from open sources, including social media platforms. Additionally, ensuring that online-collected evidence adheres to established digital evidence frameworks, as prescribed by the International Criminal Court and the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), poses another challenge.
Furthermore, due to the abundance of publicly available data, Truth Hounds needed to explore additional tools and methodologies to streamline their Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) workflows. This entailed identifying and employing command-line-based tools to programmatically extract data and geo-locate social media users situated in conflict zones.
With a strong commitment to supporting Truth Hounds, our Director of Training, Joseph Jones, established an online forum for delivering OSINT training to Truth Hounds’ investigative team. The training provided by Paliscope encompassed advanced search techniques, social media data collection and preservation, Linux command-line proficiency, and Python tools.
Truth Hounds gained full access to Paliscope Explore and Build, which enabled them to harness facial recognition, automatic license plate recognition (ALPR), and speech-to-text capabilities for processing their large datasets. These tools played a pivotal role in identifying war criminals and military vehicles involved in war crimes.
Paliscope, inspired by the relentless dedication of Truth Hounds, is committed to seeking justice for the Ukrainian people who have endured indefensible, unjustifiable, and inexcusable crimes. As a company, our mission is unwavering in its dedication to be a force for good and to hold perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses accountable. We urge our partners to support the Truth Hounds and their noble work in service to the Ukrainian people by making donations through their official website:
https://truth-hounds.org/en/support/ .”
Continual OSINT training, supported by Paliscope, empowered Truth Hounds to utilize Python-based tools for acquiring intelligence-rich data regarding Russian military personnel and paramilitary forces engaged in war crimes.
The AI capabilities of Paliscope Explore significantly expedited the processing of large data volumes, enabling Truth Hounds to identify individuals responsible for war crimes and human rights abuses. This, in turn, reduced workload times, allowing Truth Hounds to explore additional investigative leads in a landscape full of social media data.
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