Open-Source Digital Investigations Lab
Our Human Rights Digital Investigations Lab, founded and directed by Assistant Director Jess Peake equips law students with vital digital investigations techniques, including identifying, documenting and verifying digital evidence of human rights violations and war crimes, for use in an array of accountability mechanisms.
Our partnerships with human rights organizations, advocacy groups and lawyers further enrich students’ training, exposing them to the complementary research and analytical techniques used by other actors in the field.
Online Disinformation and the 2022 US Midterm Elections
Starting last fall, student researchers in the Human Rights Digital Investigations Labs under the direction of Jess Peake at the Promise Institute for Human Rights and Sylvanna Falcón at the Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas at UC Santa Cruz, part of the UC Network on Human Rights and Digital Fact-finding, launched an independent online investigation to monitor voter suppression, intimidation and disinformation narratives during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.
This research culminated in three reports. What the students found was unsettling.
The first report, Disinformation & Decentralization, examines how viral videos helped spread election denialism in Arizona’s 2022 Midterm.
Explore: Disinformation & DecentralizationThe second report details the process and open-source tools and techniques the team utilized to document and investigate disinformation narratives during the research, which may serve as a model for future election monitoring
Read: UC Student Research Team Monitors the 2022 Midterm Elections for Voter Suppression and MisinformationThe third report provides the most comprehensive, aggregated list of all election skeptics and deniers elected throughout the U.S. in the 2022 midterms. This will provide a useful research tool for those wanting to understand how far conspiracy theories have infiltrated elected offices.
Read: Summary List of Election Deniers and Skeptics Elected to Office During the 2022 U.S. MidtermsA Cutting-Edge Course
Human Rights and War Crimes: Digital Open-Source Investigations
In a course designed to prepare students for cutting-edge work, Jess Peake unpacks the concepts and practices underlying digital open-source investigations. From legal requirements to practical skills, the purpose and history of these investigations, ethical considerations, identifying trauma responses when investigating atrocity crimes, and the history of open-source investigations in human rights organizations and international courts, students gain valuable skills for any legal career.
Learn More“I’m so excited to introduce these innovative techniques to our UCLA Law community. From ascertaining the time and place of images taken nearly anywhere around the world, to determining instances of disinformation (and more), OSINT methods are something of a revolution in evidence collection.
“They are increasingly invaluable when investigating human rights violations and we are preparing our students to hit the ground running in this important work.“
Assistant Director, Jess Peake
Our Report on Social Media Content Moderation and International Human Rights Law
Click Here for Downloadable PDF
“OSINT training has allowed me to harness new digital research skills and opened my eyes to the myriad ways I can utilize the Internet to serve as a stronger legal advocate for clients. It is an invaluable course that will stay with me beyond law school as I dive into my legal career.”
Aya Dardari ’21
A Leading Partnership
We are proud to partner with the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley and the Research Center for the Americas at UC Santa Cruz to create the UC Network for Human Rights and Digital Fact-finding.
Together, we are building the foremost interdisciplinary training network for students to learn cutting-edge open-source investigation research techniques.
Training includes:
- How to Think Like an Open-Source Investigator
- How to Plan an Investigation
- Advanced Methodologies
- Geolocation & Chronolocation
- Legal and Ethical Considerations Specific to this Type of Research