Crisis footage verification: a four-layer workflow

Block

Capstone

Topic

Crisis Footage Verification

Tools

SunCalc · Google Earth Pro · Sentinel Hub · InVID/WeVerify · TinEye

Difficulty

Advanced

Prerequisites

Climate and disaster investigation workflows.

A single piece of crisis footage requires every verification layer applied in sequence before it can be published

This capstone integrates geolocation, chronolocation, source verification and satellite corroboration into a single structured workflow. Each layer eliminates a category of doubt; only when all layers pass is the footage defensible for publication.

Crisis footage verification is the most demanding context in which these methods are applied. The footage may be contested by multiple parties, uploaded through anonymous or unverified accounts, time-sensitive and accompanied by conflicting claims. The investigator cannot visit the location and cannot trust the metadata, which may have been stripped or falsified. Every conclusion must follow from observable evidence in the footage itself or from independent data sources that corroborate it.

In the field

BBC Africa Eye's 2018 investigation "Anatomy of a Killing" verified a video showing the execution of two women and two children by soldiers in Cameroon, establishing the location, a time window and the unit and individuals responsible.

Geolocation via terrain matching. Distinctive terrain was matched to satellite imagery, placing the location on a road near a village in Cameroon's Far North, close to the Nigerian border.
Shadow analysis for chronolocation. Shadow length and direction were combined with the confirmed location to narrow the time frame of the killings.
Weapons and uniform identification. Forensic analysis of weapons and uniforms identified the unit as Cameroonian army, ultimately identifying the individual soldiers involved.

BBC Africa Eye · Anatomy of a Killing · September 2018

Learning outcomes

By the end of this tutorial you will be able to:

Apply geolocation, chronolocation, source verification and satellite corroboration as an integrated sequence on a single piece of footage
Identify which verification layer is most likely to produce a definitive result for a given type of footage and prioritise accordingly
Produce a structured verification record documenting each layer's findings, confidence level and limitations
Recognise when the evidence is insufficient for publication and articulate precisely what additional corroboration is needed
Apply the workflow under time pressure without skipping layers or conflating candidate results with confirmed findings

The rest of this tutorial is for Signal subscribers.

What remains: the decision framework, the tool configuration, the failure modes, and the evidentiary standard required to use the finding defensibly. Signal is €90 a year, or €9 a month. Students, €49 a year.

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Capstone: verifying crisis footage end-to-end

A single piece of crisis footage requires every verification layer applied in sequence before it can be published

Learning outcomes

The rest of this tutorial is for Signal subscribers.

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