Do No Harm: Ethical Humanitarian Innovation and Digital Bodies

Led by Kristin Bergtora Sandvik
Jan 2019 -

How does innovation in the domain of humanitarian ICTs and digitization shape and challenge humanitarian action and its contribution to the SDGs?

The growing import of ICTs and data generate new ethical questions for humanitarians. The use of mobiles, biometric devices, wearables or drones to collect information about beneficiaries, and new partnerships with the private sector, increasingly shape emergency responses. Humanitarians and policy makers have not fully identified or grappled with the emergent ethical challenges with respect to how new technologies produce data about beneficiaries (such as digital templates of fingerprints and the iris, or real-time information about bodily functions) and the distribution of aid (information apps, blockchain, wearables). Challenges arise from technology implementation in emergency contexts, cybersecurity threats, profit motifs, experimental practices and the securitization of humanitarian data.

This multi-disciplinary, qualitative project provides a conceptual and empirical basis for addressing these questions, incorporating a responsible research and innovation perspective. The objective is to engage all stakeholders (researchers, policymakers, and operational actors) in a conversation about how ethical humanitarian innovation can contribute to realize the SDGs in an accountable manner.

The project is developed around four work packages on:

The place of data and digital bodies in humanitarian operations
Transformations of aid: market logic and intimate tracking
The humanitarian digitization-security nexus
Ethical humanitarian innovation: critical lessons for SDGs and policy

WP1-3 will produce 7 empirical case studies.

Project partners include PRIO, University of Manchester (HCRI), University of Copenhagen and the START Network labs. The project team and advisory board consist of leading humanitarian technology and innovation scholars and practitioners, with broad field and policy experience.

This project is funded by NORGLOBAL / The Research Council of Norway.

Members

Research Groups

Humanitarianism

Publications

Peer-reviewed Journal Article

Hirblinger, Andreas; Julie Marie Hansen; Kristian Hoelscher; Åshild Kolås; Kristoffer Lidén & Bruno Oliveira Martins (2022) Digital Peacebuilding: A Framework for Critical–Reflexive Engagement, International Studies Perspectives. DOI: 10.1093/isp/ekac015.

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2021) The Norwegian COVID-19 Tracing App Experiment: Lessons for Governance and Civic Activism, IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 40(3): 66–73.

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2021) Digital Refugee Lawyering: Risk, Legal Knowledge, and Accountability, Refugee Survey Quarterly 40(4): 414–432.

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2020) Digital Dead Body Management (DDBM): Time to Think it Through, Journal of Human Rights Practice. DOI: 10.1093/jhuman/huaa002.

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2020) Wearables for something good: aid, dataveillance and the production of children’s digital bodies, Information, Communication & Society 23(14): 2014–2029.

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2020) Digital Dead Body Management (DDBM): Time to Think it Through, Journal of Human Rights Practice 12(2): 428–443.

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2019) Making Wearables in Aid: Digital Bodies, Data and Gifts, Journal of Humanitarian Affairs 1(3).

Lindskov Jacobsen, Katja & Larissa Fast (2019) Rethinking access: how humanitarian technology governance blurs control and care, Disasters 43(2): 151–168.

Lindskov Jacobsen, Katja & Kristin Bergtora Sandvik (2018) UNHCR and the pursuit of international protection: accountability through technology?, Third World Quarterly. DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2018.1432346.

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2018) Technology, Dead Male Bodies, and Feminist Recognition: Gendering ICT Harm Theory, Australian Feminist Law Journal 44(1): 49–69.

Book Chapter

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2021) The Digital Transformation of Refugee Governance, in Costello, Cathryn; Michelle Foster; & Jane McAdam, eds, The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law. Oxford: OUP (1007–1026).

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2020) Humanitarian Wearables: Digital Bodies, Experimentation and Ethics, in Messelken, Daniel; & David Winkler, eds, Ethics of Medical Innovation, Experimentation, and Enhancement in Military and Humanitarian Contexts. Cham: Springer (87–104).

Lidén, Kristoffer (2020) Peace-building, in Antonio De Lauri, ed., Humanitarianism: Keywords. Leiden, Boston: Brill (154–156).

Lidén, Kristoffer (2020) Doctrine, in Antonio De Lauri, ed., Humanitarianism: Keywords. Leiden, Boston: Brill (49–51).

Lidén, Kristoffer (2020) Ethics, in Antonio De Lauri, ed., Humanitarianism: Keywords. Leiden, Boston: Brill (61–63).

Lidén, Kristoffer (2020) Universality, in Antonio De Lauri, ed., Humanitarianism: Keywords. Leiden, Boston: Brill (220–222).

PRIO Paper

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2019) Technologizing the Fight against Sexual Violence: A Critical Scoping, PRIO Paper. Oslo: PRIO.

Report - External Series

Atwii, Franziska; Kristin Bergtora Sandvik; Lotte Kirch; Beáta Paragi; Katrin Radtke; Sören Schneider; & Daniel Weller (2022) WorldRiskReport 2022 Focus: Digital Risks in Disaster Situations, The World Risk Report. Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft - Ruhr University Bochum - Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV.

Fast, Larissa (2022) Data sharing between humanitarian organisations and donors: Toward understanding and articulating responsible practice, NCHS Paper, 6. Bergen: NCHS.

Lindskov Jacobsen, Katja; Kristin Bergtora Sandvik; Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert; & Larissa Fast (2022) Box E: Digital do no harm: The State of the Humanitarian System, ALNAP Study. ALNAP.