How we do it
Film, Verify, Expose
We are community-led, driven by the demands and needs of activists and partners in impacted, often minority and marginalised communities to safely expose human rights abuses.
We apply our skillset across all human rights, specialising in purpose-driven investigations and evidence gathering, physical and digital security, analysis and verification, and storage and archiving. Gathering visual evidence is our core specialism, supplemented by other forms of direct documentation methods, such as witness testimony and environmental sampling. We work openly when we can and covertly when we need to.
Unlike purely desk-based ‘open-source intelligence’ approaches, we gather information directly. Our teams are part of impacted communities, ensuring feedback and follow-up. Our evidence is admissible in legal proceedings, not just for reports. We put human faces to the data and add critical context, often corroborating or contradicting information gathered remotely.
In several locations we have our own teams who are trained, equipped and supported to undertake both overt and covert investigations and evidence gathering in their communities. These teams are coordinated by an in-country project office that determines programmatic focus and drives investigations. In other programmes, we partner with local activists, human rights defenders, collectives and civil society organisations to provide hands-on assistance and accompaniment.
No matter where we operate or which tools and tactics we deploy, we centre frontline voices to bring abusers to justice, strengthen accountability and prevention, advance advocacy positions and inform robust policymaking.
How we keep people safe
“Videre’s work had a huge impact in bringing out rare footage, secretly filmed, exposing plans of abuses and the abuses that occurred in ruling strongholds and no-go areas for the
opposition. ”
“[Videre’s visuals] provide unprecedented insight…and a wealth of interesting information.”
We operate in hostile environments, so our approach to security is localised, and focuses on prevention and informed consent.
Our teams work within their community, reducing suspicion, enabling access, and ensuring a deep understanding of context. We work within individual, organisational, and partner risk appetites. Investigation and evidence gathering activities are planned in advance, with direct oversight from project teams, and with risk management approved by our Security Manager in line with our Risk Management Policy. When collaborating with partners, we respect their security risk management systems and work together for co-learning and improvement. Where we can safely be open about our work, we are. The identities of some team members are restricted and all communications are kept secure through overlapping physical and digital methods. Our contingency planning is stress-tested and rapid local and international response is planned around direct support, legal and advocacy avenues.
Further details are available on request for trusted partners through secure channels.
