We set out to develop an app, called CameraV, that could capture more information (metadata) and do so securely (through encryption) so that your authenticated media can more quickly make it to audiences that matter and in a format that could be trusted.

Al Jazeera reports on the app we co-developed with The Guardian Project in their new documentary “The Bigger Brother”. The piece highlights a beta test of CameraV conducted in Rio with our partners at Coletivo Papo Reto. You can watch the documentary here:

This report is part of a seven-part series from Al Jazeera called “Rebel Geeks” profiling people and organizations who are “challenging power structures and offering a different vision of our technological future.”

For more information about the app, go here and to download it, go to the Google Play Store. (The app is currently only available for Android.)

Called “The Media Doesn’t Care What Happens Here,” the story follows WITNESS partners and allies as they document police violence in the country.

In particular, journalist Matthew Shaer introduces Raull, the co-founder of a media collective in Rio de Janeiro. Our Senior Program Manager Priscila Neri has worked with Raull – and many activists like him – in an effort to document police violence effectively so that their video can strengthen calls for justice.

It is no small task. Activists estimate that police violence in Brazil kills thousands each year and marginalized favela communities are the most affected.

Important though for these Brazilian activists is that the country’s media largely ignores the epidemic. Says Raull in the article:

“Four or five bodies show up, six bodies, maybe it makes the news. One body? Never. The media doesn’t care what happens here. They’d rather not think about it.”

Their solution has been to film and document what traditional media has not covered: ongoing and systemic police violence in the favelas.

WITNESS’ collaboration with media groups like Raull’s has included efforts to turn footage taken on the frontlines of human rights abuse into justice, a central component of our video as evidence initiative.

Via The New York Times:

[WITNESS] believed that the footage shot by local residents in the world’s most dangerous places could be used not just to draw attention to acts of violence but also to put the responsible parties in prison. It was a novel vision for how criminal justice could evolve in the era of the smartphone, and the young members of [the media activist group] Papo Reto seemed like the perfect partners.

It is not only in Brazil that activists and lawyers are searching for ways to turn footage taken on the frontlines of human rights abuse into justice. With cameras in the hands of millions of people worldwide, more light is shining on abuses than ever before.

However, while citizen video often provides helpful clues about what took place and who might be responsible, the footage rarely meets the requirements for evidence in a court of law. As Kelly Matheson, our Senior Attorney and Video as Evidence Program Manager explains:

Evidentiary work requires a more detached eye. “It’s instinctual to shoot that puddle of blood or the body lying on the ground,” Matheson [tells The Times]. “It’s not instinctual to turn around and get a badge number or the location of a communications tower. If you’re strictly a media activist, you’re not going to show the world a communications tower. It’s not going to make the news. It’s not going to mobilize anyone. But from a legal sense, you need those details.”

You can read the article here — and please share with your networks so everyone, everywhere begins to understand how to use video for justice.

Also, congratulations to the New York Times Magazine for the redesign of both their print and digital editions. We’re so happy to be included in their launch issue.

More Brazil, More Video as Evidence

Learn about tools and guidance we’re developing to help activists ensure that their footage can serve as evidence in criminal and civil justice processes.

Read WITNESS Executive Director Yvette Alberdingk Thijm’s thoughts in the Huffington Post on video as evidence

Read what WITNESS Co-founder Peter Gabriel has to say about the potential power of video evidence.

Learn more about WITNESS’ work in Brazil.

The work is overseen by WITNESS’ Senior Program Manager, Priscila Neri, a native of Brazil, and is supported by a local consultant, video activist Victor Ribeiro, who will lead the efforts on the ground.

In May, Priscila and Sam Gregory, WITNESS Program Director, visited core allies and networks to:

• Integrate video documentation trainings into their respective projects;
• Create or revise new Video as Evidence materials specific to the Brazilian context in collaboration with WITNESS and partners;
• Share relevant WITNESS training material with collectives and networks that are joining forces to support World Cup protests;
• Conduct basic training on video documentation principles, informed consent, ethics and video as evidence for members of a community journalist network in Rio de Janeiro.
• Organized a Video for Change (V4C) convening with a focus on video as evidence basic principles and the potential uses of Informacam/Obscuracam, mobile applications WITNESS has created with our partners at the Guardian Project.

Police violence in Brazil has reached epidemic proportions. It is estimated that police kill more than 10,000 people each year across the country (in comparison, 2,959 civilians were killed in the conflict in Afghanistan in 2013), and a shocking number of these murders are extrajudicial. In June 2013, protests erupted across the country, sparked by forced evictions ahead of the World Cup and fed by long-running social injustices like police brutality. While poor communities and urban favelas have suffered at the hands of police and drug factions for decades, the brutal police response to these protests drew worldwide attention — in part, thanks to an outpouring of citizen video showing the abuses in real time.

More information about our activities in Brazil can be viewed at the WITNESS Blog.

Image: Brazilian police during a protest, by Gabriel Cabral.