“I was always a math nerd. My mother has a polaroid of me in the fourth grade with my science fair project … . It was the history of mathematics. In college, I was a math major for a year and then switched to statistics.

I always wanted to work in social justice. I was raised by hippies, went to protests when I was young. I always felt I had an obligation to make the world a little bit better.”

Contrario a lo que se puede pensar, los datos oficiales sobre líderes sociales asesinados no necesariamente corresponden a la realidad y podría haber mucha mayor victimización en las regiones golpeadas por este flagelo, según el más reciente informe del Centro de Estudios de Justicia, Derecho y Sociedad (Dejusticia) en colaboración con el Human Rights Data Analysis Group.

Video available. La organización Dejusticia, en alianza con una institución estadounidense, asegura que los crímenes van en aumento y existe un subregistro. “Aumentó la violencia letal contra líderes sociales en 2016 y 2017 en al menos 10%”, asegura Valentina Rozo, investigadora de Dejusticia.

“Usually, the thing you’re trying to predict in a lot of these cases is something like rearrest,” Lum said. “So even if we are perfectly able to predict that, we’re still left with the problem that the human or systemic or institutional biases are generating biased arrests. And so, you still have to contextualize even your 100 percent accuracy with is the data really measuring what you think it’s measuring? Is the data itself generated by a fair process?”

HRDAG Director of Research Patrick Ball, in agreement with Lum, argued that it’s perhaps more practical to move it away from bias at the individual level and instead call it bias at the institutional or structural level. If a police department, for example, is convinced it needs to police one neighborhood more than another, it’s not as relevant if that officer is a racist individual, he said.

The American Statistical Association’s 2018 Karl E. Peace Award for Outstanding Statistical Contributions for the Betterment of Society recently recognized the work of leading human rights mathematician Patrick Ball of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG). The award is presented annually to statisticians whose exemplary statistical research is matched by the impact their work has had on the lives of people.

Established by the family of Karl E. Peace in honor of his work for the good of society, the award—announced at the Joint Statistical Meetings—is bestowed upon distinguished individual(s) who have made substantial contributions to the statistical profession, contributions that have led in direct ways to improving the human condition. Recipients will have demonstrated through their accomplishments their commitment to service for the greater good.”

This year, Ball became the 10th recipient of the award. Read more …

A new study has estimated that over 500 Tamils were forcibly disappeared in just three days, after surrendering to the Sri Lankan army in May 2009.

The study, carried out by the Human Rights Data Analysis Group and the International Truth and Justice Project, based on compiled lists which identify those who were known to have surrendered, estimated that 503 people had been forcibly disappeared between the 17^th– 19^th of May 2009.

The Sri Lankan army must explain to the families of the disappeared and missing what happened to an estimated 500 Tamils who disappeared in their custody at the war end on/around 18 May 2009, said two international NGOs who have been collating and analysing lists of names.

Sri Lanka has one of the largest numbers in the world of enforced disappearances but these 500 represent the largest number of disappearances all in one place and time in the country. For a detailed account of the process of estimating the 500 please see: “How many people disappeared on 17-19 May 2009 in Sri Lanka?” .

The International Truth and Justice Project and HRDAG have published a report on 500 Tamils who disappeared while in Army custody in Sri Lanka in 2009.

The report is titled “How many people disappeared on 17-19 May 2009 in Sri Lanka?” and Patrick Ball, director of research at HRDAG, is the lead author.

Patrick Ball es un sabueso de la verdad. Ese deseo de descubrir lo que otros quieren ocultar lo ha llevado a desarrollar fórmulas matemáticas para detectar desaparecidos.

Su trabajo consiste en aplicar métodos de medición científica para comprobar violaciones masivas de derechos humanos.

Kristian Lum, the lead statistician at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, and an expert on algorithmic bias, said she hoped Stanford’s stumble made the institution think more deeply about representation.

“This type of oversight makes me worried that their stated commitment to the other important values and goals – like taking seriously creating AI to serve the ‘collective needs of humanity’ – is also empty PR spin and this will be nothing more than a vanity project for those attached to it,” she wrote in an email.

Ball analyzed the data reporters had collected from a variety of sources – including on-the-ground interviews, police records, and human rights groups – and used a statistical technique called multiple systems estimation to roughly calculate the number of unreported deaths in three areas of the capital city Manila.

The team discovered that the number of drug-related killings was much higher than police had reported. The journalists, who published their findings last month in The Atlantic, documented 2,320 drug-linked killings over an 18-month period, approximately 1,400 more than the official number. Ball’s statistical analysis, which estimated the number of killings the reporters hadn’t heard about, found that close to 3,000 people could have been killed – more than three times the police figure.

Ball said there are both moral and technical reasons for making sure everyone who has been killed in mass violence is counted.

“The moral reason is because everyone who has been murdered should be remembered,” he said. “A terrible thing happened to them and we have an obligation as a society to justice and to dignity to remember them.”

El modelo “puede distinguir entre los municipios en que vamos a encontrar fosas clandestinas, y en los que es improbable que vayamos a encontrar estas fosas”, explicó Patrick Ball, estadístico estadounidense que colabora con el Programa de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Iberoamericana de la Ciudad de México.

Tarak Shah is quoted with regard to the National Police Index: “Police often avoid accountability by moving to another agency rather than face discipline. This tool, allowing anyone to look up and track the histories of such officers, provides an invaluable service for the human rights community in our fight against impunity.”

“Led by the nonprofit Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), the process began with creating a merged dataset of “fully identified victims” to avoid double counting. Only casualties whose complete details were listed — such as their full name, date of death and the governorate they had been killed in — were included on this initial list, explained Megan Price, executive director at HRDAG. If details were missing, the victim could not be confidently cross-checked across the eight organizations’ lists, and so was excluded. This provided HRDAG and the U.N. with a minimum count of individuals whose deaths were fully documented by at least one of the different organizations. … “

HRDAG is mentioned in the “child welfare (sometimes called “family policing”)” section: At least 72,000 low-income children are exposed to AI-related decision-making through government child welfare agencies’ use of AI to determine if they are likely to be neglected. As a result, these children experience heightened risk of being separated from their parents and placed in foster care.

The Human Rights Data Analysis Group employs AI to analyze data from conflict zones, identifying patterns of human rights abuses that might be overlooked. This assists international organizations in holding perpetrators accountable.

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.