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Reflections on Data Science for Real-World Problems

Trina Reynolds-Tyler's internship at HRDAG helped her use data science to find patterns in state-sanctioned violence.

Data Archaeology for Human Rights in Central America: HRDAG Collaborates with UWCHR

Patrick Ball is kicking himself for a decision he made almost 25 years ago. “I was clever, but I wasn’t smart,” he says ruefully, as he considers the labyrinth of tables and ASCII-encoded keystrings he used to design a database of human rights violations for the pioneering Salvadoran non-governmental Human Rights Commission (CDHES). Now I’m sitting in his office in San Francisco’s Mission District watching over his shoulder, and trying to keep up, as he bangs out code to decipher the priceless data contained in these old files. Created in 1991 and 1992, during the last days of El Salvador’s internal armed conflict, the files detail ...

Sierra Leone

Following a brutal 11-year civil war, the Parliament of Sierra Leone called for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to create "an impartial, historical record of the conflict", and "address impunity; respond to the needs of victims; promote healing and reconciliation; and prevent a repetition of the violations and abuses suffered." The full text of the TRC report is available on the Sierra Leone Web. HRDAG assisted the TRC to build a systematic data coding system, electronic database, and secure data analysis process to manage the thousands of statements given to them in the course of their work. Dr. Ball visited Freetown twice, and HRDAG ...

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, ...

Our People

The Human Rights Data Analysis Group is composed of a diverse group of board members, full-time staff, and consultants. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, we work with experts in the fields of computer science, software development, mathematical and applied statistics, and demography. Advisory Board As a nonprofit organization, our Advisory Board serves as our governing body. This board helps us to make decisions, keeps us on track with our mission and goals, and oversees the organization in legal and logistical matters. David Banks, Professor, Statistical Science, Duke University Kim Keller, Executive Director, The Keller Foundation Dinah ...

About Us

Who We Are The Human Rights Data Analysis Group is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that applies rigorous science to the analysis of human rights violations around the world. We are a team with expertise in mathematical statistics, computer science, demography, and social science. We are non-partisan—we do not take sides in political or military conflicts, nor do we advocate any particular political party or government policy. However, we are not neutral: we are always in favor of human rights. We support the protections established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and ...

Millions of Pages of Police Use-of-Force Files Available through New Searchable Database

A new, public database will bring more oversight to police abuses in California—and may serve as a model for police accountability for other states across the country. HRDAG was part of a coalition behind the recently-launched Police Records Access Project. The new searchable database includes ...

Multiple Systems Estimation: Stratification and Estimation

<< Previous post, MSE: The Matching Process Q10. What is stratification? Q11. [In depth] How do HRDAG analysts approach stratification, and why is it important? Q12. How does MSE find the total number of violations? Q13. [In depth] What are the assumptions of two-system MSE (capture-recapture)? Why are they not necessary with three or more systems? Q14. What statistical model(s) does HRDAG typically use to calculate MSE estimates? (more…)

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.


Talks & Discussions

2021 Rafto Prize Videos .ugb-1c7c838 .ugb-video-popup__wrapper{height:460px !important;background-color:#000000;background-image:url(https://hrdag.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Screen-Shot-2022-12-09-at-3.41.30-PM.png)}.ugb-1c7c838 .ugb-video-popup__wrapper:before{background-color:#000000;opacity:0.3}.ugb-1c7c838 .ugb-video-popup__wrapper:hover:before{opacity:0.6}.ugb-1c7c838 .ugb-block-title{color:#ffffff}.ugb-1c7c838 .ugb-block-description{color:#ffffff}@media screen and (max-width:768px){.ugb-1c7c838 .ugb-video-popup__wrapper{height:208px !important}}The Rafto Prize 2021 | Rafto Foundation Rafto Foundation | HRDAG team | 2021 | 4 ...

Newsletters

2025 14 November, 2025 - Analyzing Chicago's missing person cases 21 October, 2025 - HRDAG takes a stand against tyranny 9 October, 2025 - Unlocking unstructured data and getting it right 30 September, 2025 - Structural Zero 04: Pulling Back the Curtain on LLMs and Policing Data 23 September, 2025 - California’s Racial Justice Act and Police Records Access Project 24 August, 2025 - Structural Zero 03: Without Encryption, My Work Wouldn’t Be Possible 17 July, 2025 - Structural Zero 02: Scatter and keep working 3 June, 2025 - Structural Zero 01: Dictatorships create a lot of data  24 June, 2025 - Breaking through the ...

Focus on Good Science, not Scientists

We recently learned about an article by Dr Nafeez Ahmed that criticizes the methods and conclusions of the Iraq Body Count (IBC) and the work of Professor Michael Spagat. Dr Ahmed cites our work extensively in support of his arguments, so we think it’s useful for us to reply. We welcome Dr Ahmed’s summary of various points of scientific debate about mortality due to violence, specifically in Iraq and Colombia. We think these are very important questions for the analysis of data about violent conflict, and indeed, about data analysis more generally. We appreciate his exploration of the technical nuances of this difficult field. Unfortunately, ...

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Perú, Final Report – General Conclusions.


Truth Commissioner

From the Guatemalan military to the South African apartheid police, code cruncher Patrick Ball singles out the perpetrators of political violence.


Court Sentences Two Former Policemen to 40 Years in Prison Todanoticia.com


Big Data Predictive Analytics Comes to Academic and Nonprofit Institutions to Fuel Innovation

“Revolution Analytics will allow HRDAG to handle bigger data sets and leverage the power of R to accomplish this goal and uncover the truth.” Director of Research Megan Price is quoted


Data-driven development needs both social and computer scientists

Excerpt:

Data scientists are programmers who ignore probability but like pretty graphs, said Patrick Ball, a statistician and human rights advocate who cofounded the Human Rights Data Analysis Group.

“Data is broken,” Ball said. “Anyone who thinks they’re going to use big data to solve a problem is already on the path to fantasy land.”


India

In 2009, as Indians debated institutional reform of their security forces in the wake of the previous year's Mumbai attacks, HRDAG issued a groundbreaking report about the human cost of suspending the rule of law during a violent counterinsurgency campaign in the Indian state of Punjab. Together with our partner Ensaaf, HRDAG released findings that cast substantial doubt on the Indian government's past explanations and justifications for disappearances and extrajudicial killings during the height of the Punjab counterinsurgency in the early 1990s. These findings contribute to an increasing body of knowledge that informs policy questions about the ...

Timor-Leste 2006 – Combining Found Data and Innovative Surveys To Uncover the Truth

Large-scale human rights violations in Timor-Leste began in 1975 when the Indonesian government invaded the small island and continued until Timorese independence in 1999. Disappearances, torture, forced displacement and extra-judicial killings took place during the Indonesian occupation compounded by a severe famine. Estimates of deaths ranged from 50,000 to 200,000, but individual sources reflected only a fraction of total fatalities. The Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR) asked HRDAG to investigate abuses during the conflict. This chapter describes how Ball and HRDAG scientists Romesh Silva and Scott Weikart ...

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

As an organization that uses science to advocate for human rights, the goals and issues represented by Ada Lovelace Day are very near and dear to our hearts.  Additionally, we are lucky to work with and be advised by some pretty kick-ass ladies in STEM (see our People page to learn more about these amazing women (and men)). I brainstormed a list of women I could write about, as Finding Ada suggests we celebrate today by blogging about a STEM heroine.  I considered Anita Borg (she has her own institute!), who advocated tirelessly for women in computer science.  I thought about Sally Wyatt, keynote speaker and organizer of the fascinating workshop...

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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