Ebook
Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations
United Nations Human Rights Office and UC Berkeley Human Rights Center
The international standard for collecting, preserving, verifying, and reporting open-source evidence of serious crimes. Free, in six languages, and the document a court will ask whether you followed.
Co-published by the UN and Berkeley's Human Rights Center, the protocol sets principles, a legal framework, security standards, preparation steps, an investigation process from inquiry through analysis, and reporting guidance for digital open-source investigations of international crimes. It is a standards document, not a tool guide, with templates in the annexes. Ukrainian prosecutors and Bellingcat's legal partners cite it as their framework.
Worth it if
- Your findings may reach a court, tribunal, or formal accountability process
- You run an investigations team and need written standards
- You want templates for an investigation plan and a risk assessment
- You document conflict, atrocities, or human rights violations
Skip it if
- You want techniques or tools; the protocol deliberately names none
- Your work is corporate or cyber and nobody will ever challenge your chain of custody
What is inside
- 01
Principles and legal framework
Professional, methodological, and ethical principles; public international law; jurisdiction; investigative powers; rules of evidence; privacy and data protection.
- 02
Security and preparation
Minimum security standards; digital threat and risk assessment; landscape assessment; an online investigation plan; resilience and self-care; data policies and tools.
- 03
Investigation process
Online inquiries, preliminary assessment, collection, preservation, verification, and investigative analysis.
- 04
Reporting
Written, oral, and visual reporting of findings.
- 05
Annexes
Templates for the investigation plan, risk assessment, landscape assessment, data collection, and validating new tools.
What you will be able to do
- Collect and preserve open-source material with a defensible chain of custody
- Write an investigation plan and a risk assessment before you start
- Verify material to a standard a lawyer can audit
- Report findings in a form accountability bodies expect
How current it is
The 2022 final edition is current and the publishing institutions are active. It has been cited by a Ukrainian prosecutor's office and by Bellingcat's legal methodology. It does not address crowdsourcing, which commentators note, and it predates generative AI.
- Updated
- 2022 edition; advance version 2020
- Maintained
- Actively maintained
How to get the most from it
- 01
Start from the annexes
Fill in the investigation plan template for a real case. The body of the protocol explains each field.
- 02
Adopt the preservation section first
Preservation is the step most investigators do badly and the one courts care about most.
- 03
Read it with Digital Witness
The book explains why; the protocol says how.
Strengths
- The recognised standard
- Templates included
- Six languages, free
Limitations
- No tools or techniques
- Legal register
- Silent on crowdsourcing
Pair it with
- ReadBookPaidIntermediateArchived
Digital Witness
The textbook from the same institutions that explains the why.
- ReadEbookFreeAll levels
Video as Evidence Field Guide
Field practice for capturing video that meets these standards.
- ReadCourseFreeBeginner
Open-source Intelligence (Basel LEARN)
A free course that ends in the kind of report the protocol describes.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Has the ICC adopted it?
No formal adoption that we could find. It is discussed alongside ICC practice, cited by national prosecutors, and used as a methodology by investigative organisations.
Which language files are official?
All six on the UN Digital Library. One translation link on the Berkeley page pointed to the wrong file when checked, so use the UN record for Spanish.
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