: How Ukraine Is Crowdsourcing Digital Evidence of War Crimes #WorldNEWS It all looks like a game at first. Verified users of Ukraines government mobile app are greeted with options illustrated by icons

How Ukraine Is Crowdsourcing Digital Evidence of War Crimes #WorldNEWS
It all looks like a game at first. Verified users of Ukraines government mobile app are greeted with options illustrated by icons of military helmets and targets. An automated prompt helps you report Russian troop movements in your area, and rewards you with a flexed-arm emoji. Remember, the message says. Each of your shots in this bot means one less enemy. Another option on the menu, illustrated by a droplet of blood, prompts Ukrainians to report and submit footage of war crimes in places now associated with horrific atrocities: Bucha, Irpin, Gostomel.
This chatbot, created by Ukraine’s Digital Ministry and dubbed “e-Enemy,” is one of half a dozen digital tools the government has set up to crowdsource and corroborate evidence of alleged war crimes. Since the start of the invasion, Ukrainian officials, lawyers and human-rights groups have scrambled to design new ways to catalogue and verify reams of video, photo and eyewitness accounts of criminal behavior by Russian forces. Ukraine has adapted popular government apps to allow citizens to document damage to their homes, used facial-recognition software to identify Russian military officials in photos, and rolled out new tools to guide users through the process of geo-tagging and time-stamping their footage in hopes it may help authorities hold the perpetrators responsible.
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The result is a systematic effort unlike any in the history of modern warfare, experts say. Crowdsourcing digital proof of war crimes from witnesses has been done in other conflicts, but the use of open-source information as evidence in the case of Ukraine may be at altogether a different level,” says Nadia Volkova, director of the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group and a member an alliance of Ukrainian human-rights organizations called the 5AM coalition. Named for the time the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, the group trains volunteers to document eyewitness testimony, and to collect, preserve and verify evidence in accordance with international protocols. The goal is not only to achieve justice for the victims, Volkova says, but also contribute to the development of international law and the use of open-source information as evidence in complex cases.
The apps, chatbots and websites designed by Ukrainian officials categorize different kinds of war crimes and human-rights violations and all feed into one centralized database set up by the office of Ukraines Prosecutor General. These include the killing or injury of civilians by Russians; physical violence or imprisonment; denial of medical care; looting; and seizure of property by occupying forces. Verified users are prompted to report violence against medical staff or religious clergy; damage to civilian infrastructure; and the use of military equipment in residential areas.