10 Considerations The main considerations mentioned by all three interviewee groups are summarised below. Given the small sample size, these are not comprehensive. CONTEXTUALISE VS ADAPT Interviewees generally acknowledged that some tools needed to be specifically designed for a particular situation because human rights defenders are operating in such a wide range of different contexts. However, intermediaries and developers disagreed on whether it was more effective to customise existing tools, or develop new tools for a particular purpose. One HRD we spoke to said that tools which came with lots of “bells and whistles” can inspire organisations with ideas, but practically speaking can also “a challenge” to narrow it down to actual needs. Another mentioned that a tool they use, CaseBox, is “constantly changing to satisfy requirements of other users” which leaves them with lots of new features they do not need, and consequently “lowers motivation among employees” to learn how to use it. Others mentioned that building custom tools from scratch, suited to particular situations, was perhaps a better route to go down due to the big contextual differences in the field. One HRD we spoke to described her job as “thinking two steps ahead when entering data into the system” - having to think about what people’s needs might be in the future, who might come and need this data, and according to that, adjusting the way in which data is put into a database system. Indeed, a running theme through many of the interviews with HRDs was that database software tools are (with a couple of exceptions) not meeting their needs - somewhat counter-intuitively, sometimes because it is too complicated, and sometimes because it is lacking features that they need. Where tools had been built with a general human rights documentation use case in mind, some HRDs we spoke to noted that in the effort to cater to so many different contextual differences, the tool had become too complicated for use, or became difficult to distinguish from other tools available. For example, one interviewee described Martus as being “too big and too complicated” for use, with another interviewee saying that HRDs they work with “are not sure what the differences are between database software” for documentation purposes. DIGITAL SECURITY CONCERNS Less than a third of organisations we spoke with were using tools which were managed or produced by for-profit entities, and the majority of those were not specifically aimed at human rights defenders, for example, Google Drive, or Dropbox. Through desk research, though, we came across one technology tool aimed at human rights organisations and non-profit entities which is built by Palantir, a company that has received major funding from the CIA, which offers database analysis and technology services through their “Philanthropy Engineering” branch. For human rights defenders working in politically restrictive or sensitive areas, a decision here must be made on whether it is appropriate to share data with companies that have such tight links to the CIA or the US government,2 despite the seemingly attractive 2 To learn more about responsible data concerns, please see the Responsible Data Handbook https://responsibledata.io/resources/handbook/