Technology and Vulnerability in Early Warning: Ethical Use of IT in Dangerous Places

Initial versions of conflict early warning and early response were primarily designed for use by diplomats, UN bureaucrats, and top-level government officials to support early responses to avert chaos in governance, factional bloodshed, and associated humanitarian crises. More recently, there has been a shift of emphasis to early warning and early response at a local-level due, in part, to emerging technologies – especially cell phones and social media. We are beginning to see that effectiveness involves leaders at the local-, mid-, and top-levels being engaged in early response. Outsiders can be engaged constructively, but ethical questions must be addressed to guide involvement that is appropriate. Seven ethical principles are offered to steer conflict early warning and early response programing in its current programmatic and technological configurations. The principles take into account the involvement of outsiders and the vulnerability of insiders on the ground who have the most to lose if violence breaks out and the most to gain in preventing it.