4.3.1 Witnesses and Contact Persons The protection of sources is essential in respecting the do no harm principle. As a basic rule, witnesses and contact persons should not find themselves in (greater) danger because of your documentation activities. First and foremost, always keep in mind that acting as a contact person or source involves personal risks. Moreover, not protecting sources could compromise the value of your work, and may ultimately lead to the reneging of potential evidence. 194 An informant should always be made fully aware of the potential security risks of providing information, as well as of any risks arising from any development of the situation on which s/he has provided information. An informant should fully understand these risks and indicate their acceptance of them. Under no circumstances may a person be pressurized to obtain or give information and they may at all times withdraw his/her consent to providing information. 195 Confidentiality is the main way to ensure the security of informants,196 and an essential precaution to prevent risk to those that engage with you. It also renders victims/witnesses and other relevant sources more willing to cooperate. Such other relevant contacts may include members of police forces, government, or armed forces who leak information about their own services, or other individuals in sensitive places. A breach of confidentiality can put everyone involved at severe risk and undermines the trust between informants and those documenting violations. In general terms, Information, and in particular sensitive information, should be shared only on a need-to-know basis. The following are important to bear in mind to keep information confidential: • Ensure that sources remain unnamed. Do not make their information public. Ensure that they are not traceable. 194 Stephen Wilkinson, Finding the Facts. Standards of proof and information handling in monitoring, reporting and fact finding missions 22 (February 1, 2014), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2400927. 195 Marit Maehlum, Human Rights Monitoring, in MANUAL ON HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORING. AN INTRODUCTION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS FIELD OFFICERS 1, 24 (Kristin Hogdahl, Ingrid Kvammen Ekkerr and Lalaine Sadiwa, eds., 2002). 196 Physical protection hardly represents a practical or feasible alternative. It requires too many resources. 125