This new report by the United Nations Office of High Commissioner of Human Rights builds on three prior analyses and new statistical analysis by HRDAG on killings in Syria.
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Without Encryption, My Work Wouldn’t Be Possible
Structural Zero Issue 03
August 24, 2025
Part Three of Our Three-Part “Gathering the Data” Series. Read part one and part two.
In computer security, “security” is always relative to something. What are we actually defending against, and how are we doing it? This is our “threat model.”
My colleagues and I have been using scientific tools to analyze evidence of human rights abuses, including using statistics to uncover mass graves in Mexico and analyzing under-reported police homicides in the United States.
Our work isn’t always popular. It can infuriate those in power who want to cover up incriminating truths about the ...
Reflections: A Simple Plan
I got an email from my superheroic PhD adviser in June 2006: Would I be interested in relocating to Palo Alto for six months in order to work with Patrick Ball at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group? (She'd gotten a grant and would cover my stipend.) Since I'd spent the last several months in New Haven wrestling ineffectually with giant, brain-melting methodological problems, I said yes immediately.
The plan with my adviser was simple: I'd digitize the ancient, multiply-photocopied pages of data from the United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, combine them with two other datasets, match across all the records, and produce reliable ...
Podcast: Dr. Patrick Ball on Using Statistics to Uncover Truth
Dr. Patrick Ball recently visited the Plutopia News Network podcast for a wide-ranging, inspiring conversation about his work for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group.
Patrick spoke about how he first discovered human rights work during his time in El Salvador with the Peace Brigades International. That led to his ongoing work as a statistician and computer programmer working to assess and analyze human rights violations. He also unpacked some common statistical techniques used by researchers at Human Rights Data Analysis Group, such as multiple systems estimation, which uses multiple different datasets to gain insights into the data we don't ...
Evaluating gunshot detection technology
Bailey’s analysis stemmed from data we had access to as part of our ongoing collaboration with the Invisible Institute.
The killings of social movement leaders and human rights defenders in Colombia 2018 – 2023: an estimate of the universe.
Valentina Rozo Ángel and Patrick Ball. 2024. The killings of social movement leaders and human rights defenders in Colombia 2018 - 2023: an estimate of the universe. Human Rights Data Analysis Group. 18 December 2024. © HRDAG 2024. Creative Commons International license 4.0.
Valentina Rozo Ángel and Patrick Ball. 2024. The killings of social movement leaders and human rights defenders in Colombia 2018 – 2023: an estimate of the universe. Human Rights Data Analysis Group. 18 December 2024. © HRDAG 2024. Creative Commons International license 4.0.
How Review of Police Data Verified Neglect of Missing Black Women
Sloppy recordkeeping by Chicago police has compromised missing persons cases. HRDAG is working with Pulitzer Prize-winning Invisible Institute to shed light on these stories.
Estimating the Number of SARS-CoV-2 Infections and the Impact of Mitigation Policies
This Harvard Data Science Review article uses the least unreliable source of pandemic data: reported deaths.
Quantifying Police Misconduct in Louisiana
HRDAG contributes to the project by helping to classify, filter, extract, and standardize the records so that they can be useful in the database.
Lessons at HRDAG: Holding Public Institutions Accountable
Principled Data Processing is a way to prove to someone, usually yourself, that what you did was right.
HRDAG Welcomes New Staff, Interns and Fellow
HRDAG is delighted to announce five additions to our team: one new staff member, three summer interns, and one fellow.
Lies, Damned Lies and Official Statistics
This essay in the Health and Human Rights Journal addresses attempts to undermine Covid-19 data collection.
Where Stats and Rights Thrive Together
Everyone I had the pleasure of interacting with enriched my summer in some way.
Press Release, Timor-Leste, November 2006
Palo Alto, CA, November 12, 2006 –The Benetech® Initiative congratulates the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) and the Timorese people for the official release of the CAVR's final report Chega! in Australia today. The 2,500 page report uncovers previously unknown findings about past human rights abuses in Timor-Leste between 1974 and 1999. In particular, the report uncovers widespread and systematic human rights violations in Timor-Leste during the period 1974-1999.
Benetech's statistical analysis establishes that at least 102,800 (+/- 11,000) Timorese died as a result of the conflict. Approximately 18,600 (+/- 1000) ...
South Africa
Under apartheid, South Africans from all sides suffered violence and human rights abuses. One of the mandates of the the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was to report truth by reporting on violations and victims.
Dr. Patrick Ball, as Deputy Director of the Science and Human Rights Program (SHRP) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), used the who-did-what-to-whom data model to provide statistical analysis of the violations reported to the Commission, for use in the final report of the TRC.
Links:
http://shr.aaas.org/southafrica/trcsa/
http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/index....
HRDAG Retreat 2018
What follows is an elaborate criss-crossing of collaborations—retreat is a time to embrace the productivity that comes with being in the same room.
Welcoming our new Technical Lead
After almost two months of searching for the perfect fit, we’re very pleased to announce that Josh Shadlen has joined HRDAG as our new technical lead. Finding Josh was no easy feat. We were looking for what many people would call a “data scientist,” that is, someone with expertise in both computer science and statistics. These days, “data science” is one of the hottest fields out there.
Bringing the perfect mix of academic depth and thoughtful reflection, Josh stood out for us. With prior jobs including gigs at Silicon Valley startups and Twitter, he’s got high-level (more…)
Why Collecting Data In Conflict Zones Is Invaluable—And Nearly Impossible
HRDAG's work in Kosovo and in the Guatemalan trial of General José Efraín Ríos Montt is discussed in this article. Megan Price, HRDAG's director of research, is quoted. “There is a wide variety of things that could be considered data,” she says.
From the story:
Price’s main data analysis tool requires fitting a model to the data that ends up in her lap. That way, she can see whether there are gaps in the data and what more needs to be included. The method, called multiple systems estimation analysis, lets Price look at patterns across lists of data, for example, lists of victims. The resulting model reveals how much data is missing, to a ...
HRDAG Drops Dropbox
On Wednesday, April 9, the file hosting service Dropbox announced the addition of Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, to their Board of Directors, citing the need for “a leader who could help us expand our global footprint.”
In response to this announcement, HRDAG requested (and rapidly received) a refund for our recent purchase of Dropbox for Business, and will drop the use of their service entirely.
Patrick Ball, HRDAG’s Executive Director stated: “As a human rights organization, we find Condoleezza Rice's complicity in the serious human rights abuses of the Bush administration very worrying. ...
Kristian Lum in Bloomberg
The interview poses questions about Lum's focus on artificial intelligence and its impact on predictive policing and sentencing programs.