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Doing a Number on Violators


Scatter and keep working

Structural Zero Issue 02 July 17, 2025 Part Two of Our Three Part “Gathering the Data” Series. Read part one.  As a statistician, I spend most of my days working at a computer. Because I work with data about human rights violations, I go to places where I can document evidence of crimes—like disappearances, killings, and torture. So while I may just be working at a computer, those computers can be in places where there is still the potential for violence to emerge. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about how to work in countries emerging from conflict. Those lessons seem especially applicable today, ...

Weapons of Math Destruction

Weapons of Math Destruction: invisible, ubiquitous algorithms are ruining millions of lives. Excerpt:

As Patrick once explained to me, you can train an algorithm to predict someone’s height from their weight, but if your whole training set comes from a grade three class, and anyone who’s self-conscious about their weight is allowed to skip the exercise, your model will predict that most people are about four feet tall. The problem isn’t the algorithm, it’s the training data and the lack of correction when the model produces erroneous conclusions.


The Data Scientist Helping to Create Ethical Robots

Kristian Lum is focusing on artificial intelligence and the controversial use of predictive policing and sentencing programs.

What’s the relationship between statistics and AI and machine learning?

AI seems to be a sort of catchall for predictive modeling and computer modeling. There was this great tweet that said something like, “It’s AI when you’re trying to raise money, ML when you’re trying to hire developers, and statistics when you’re actually doing it.” I thought that was pretty accurate.


One Better

The University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts profiled Patrick Ball in its fall 2016 issue of the alumni magazine. Here’s an excerpt:

Ball believes doing this laborious, difficult work makes the world a more just place because it leads to accountability.

“My part is a specific, narrow piece, which just happens to fit with the skills I have,” he says. “I don’t think that what we do is in any way the best or most important part of human rights activism. Sometimes, we are just a footnote—but we are a really good footnote.”


Los asesinatos de líderes sociales que quedan fuera de las cuentas

Una investigación de Dejusticia y Human Rights Data Analysis Group concluyó que hay un subconteo en los asesinatos de líderes sociales en Colombia. Es decir, que el aumento de estos crímenes en 2016 y 2017 podría ser incluso mayor al reportado por las organizaciones y por las cifras oficiales.


Predictive policing tools send cops to poor/black neighborhoods

100x100-boingboing-logoIn this post, Cory Doctorow writes about the Significance article co-authored by Kristian Lum and William Isaac.


El problema del asesinato a líderes es más grave de lo que se piensa

Una investigación de Dejusticia y Human Rights Data Analysis Group  asegura que en Colombia hay un subregistro de los asesinatos de líderes sociales que se han perpetrado en Colombia. Al analizar las diferentes cifras de homicidios que han publicado diversas organizaciones desde 2016, se llegó a la conclusión que la problemática es mayor de lo que se cree.


How much faith can we place in coronavirus antibody tests?

Given a positive test result, what is the probability that an individual has antibodies? This HRDAG-authored Granta article explains the science.

Making the Case. Investigating Large Scale Human Rights Violations Using Information Systems and Data Analysis

Patrick Ball, Herbert F. Spirer, and Louise Spirer, eds. Making the Case. Investigating Large Scale Human Rights Violations Using Information Systems and Data Analysis . © 2000 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. [full text] [intro] [chapters 1 2 3 4 5 67 8 9 10 11 12]


Different Convenience Samples, Different Stories: The Case of Sierra Leone.


Collecting Sensitive Human Rights Data in the Field: A Case Study from Amritsar, India.

Romesh Silva and Jasmine Marwaha. “Collecting Sensitive Human Rights Data in the Field: A Case Study from Amritsar, India.” In JSM Proceedings, Social Statistics Section. Alexandria, VA. © 2011 American Statistical Association. All rights reserved.


Counting the Unknown Victims of Political Violence: The Work of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group

Ann Harrison (2012). Counting the Unknown Victims of Political Violence: The Work of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, in Human Rights and Information Communications Technologies: Trends and Consequences of Use. © 2012 IGI Global. All rights reserved.


On ensuring a higher level of data quality when documenting human rights violations to support research into the origins and cause of human rights violations

Romesh Silva. “On ensuring a higher level of data quality when documenting human rights violations to support research into the origins and cause of human rights violations.” ASA Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, the International Biometric Society (ENAR and WNAR), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the Statistical Society of Canada. August, 2002.


Data-driven crime prediction fails to erase human bias

Work by HRDAG researchers Kristian Lum and William Isaac is cited in this article about the Policing Project: “While this bias knows no color or socioeconomic class, Lum and her HRDAG colleague William Isaac demonstrate that it can lead to policing that unfairly targets minorities and those living in poorer neighborhoods.”


What HBR Gets Wrong About Algorithms and Bias

“Kristian Lum… organized a workshop together with Elizabeth Bender, a staff attorney for the NY Legal Aid Society and former public defender, and Terrence Wilkerson, an innocent man who had been arrested and could not afford bail. Together, they shared first hand experience about the obstacles and inefficiencies that occur in the legal system, providing valuable context to the debate around COMPAS.”


Death Toll In Syria Jumps To Nearly 93,000


Mapping Mexico’s hidden graves

When Patrick Ball was introduced to Ibero’s database, the director of research at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group in San Francisco, California, saw an opportunity to turn the data into a predictive model. Ball, who has used similar models to document human rights violations from Syria to Guatemala, soon invited Data Cívica, a Mexico City–based nonprofit that creates tools for analyzing data, to join the project.


How Machine Learning Protects Whistle-Blowers in Staten Island

People filed complaints against NYPD officers, and HRDAG went above and beyond to protect the privacy of the people who reported the offenses.

Want to know a police officer’s job history? There’s a new tool

NPR Illinois has covered the new National Police Index, created by HRDAG’s Tarak Shah, Ayyub Ibrahim of Innocence Project, and Sam Stecklow of Invisible Institute.


Our work has been used by truth commissions, international criminal tribunals, and non-governmental human rights organizations. We have worked with partners on projects on five continents.

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