HOW UMAM MANGED THE MISSING:
An Evaluation of UMAMs data collection and management policies
By: Jena Karam, Monica Elias and Sabine Ezzeddine
UMAM Documentation and Research is a Lebanese non-governmental organization (NGO) that collects information about people who went missing during the 1975–1990 Civil War. UMAM D&R also functions as an archive and public platform for the exchange of information about these more sensitive topics. Non governmental organizations as such have the power to hold vast amounts of data on populations, such as refugees, but also important records on a regions national history. Who has control and access to this highly sensitive information is a question regarding the organization’s data policies and terms of consent. “Fundamental questions about access and control, ownership and authorship test rationalities of library and archival management” (Anderson, 2005 p.4). Being a center with the authority over how an entire generation of people are remembered through time, carries a large amount of responsibility with the job. For that reason, we decided to investigate how the organization collects, verifies and protects their data. To our surprise, a lot has changed since UMAM’s first encounters with the ongoing missing persons project in Lebanon.
The aim of the project has dramatically changed since it began in 2004, as the NGO has chosen to alter it’s focus of interest. “Today, our interest is more general. It is not about collecting data about missing and forcibly disappeared persons; exclusively it’s about understanding the sole feature of violence which is called kidnapping and forced disappearance in Lebanon,” says Lokman Slim, the co-founder of UMAM D&R. Prior to this change, however, UMAM had started with a fair amount of data provided from interviews and other sources. Wadad Halawani, the representer of the Committee of the Parents of the Kidnapped and Missing Persons in Lebanon, provided the organization with around 230 photos and names. Additionally, they had received a similar number of missing persons reports from Ghazi Aad, the representer of the Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE). Besides what was donated, the organization’s data was mainly collected through interviews with the families of the missing individuals and exhibitions they held, which toured, for almost two years, all over Lebanon (in Tripoli, Marjayoun, Jbeil, Saida and Beirut). Families would provide photos at exhibitions asking for the help of UMAM in locating their loved ones, in addition to giving interviews about where they had last seen the missing members. UMAM had also sent researchers to different parts of Lebanon, such as the Palestinian camps, Bekaa, the South and North, in order to be more inclusive of families. In total, the organization had eventually gathered information for at least 700 missing people. Originally, the NGO would only collect the names, photos, and last seen date of the missing individuals; however, between the years of 2008 and 2009, they organized a bigger exhibition called ‘What is to be done: Lebanon’s war-loaded memory’. The exhibition continued with two days of workshops on transitional justice, with one workshop dedicated to the mass graves.
Throughout the years, UMAM had managed to collect a large amount of data. Today, however, the database, along with all their information on the missing people, has been handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Although they do not state this on any of their websites or publications, in an interview with Monika Borgmann (2019) she mentions that “UMAM had decided to halt their research once the ICRC began collecting DNA from the families of the missing.” With the fear of too many interviewers causing confusion and discomfort for families, resulting in hard memories being brought back up, UMAM decided to pull out of the missing persons project. As an overall result, UMAM D&R created a new project called Memory at Work, an online database which archives the memories and recollections of the Lebanese Civil war.
Collective knowledge refers to the intangible resources such as: histories, memories, oral testimonies, customary, spiritual and traditional knowledge; that was born out of shared experience and social interactions over time. Although this type of data does not have a single owner, the rights to this indigenous knowledge go to the record creators and not the data subjects themselves. “In most cases, Indigenous people are not the legal copyright owners of the material — and this means that they have very little say in how the material is used and accessed” (Anderson, 2005, p.4). In the case of the missing persons file, the missing individuals are not around to give their consent on how they will be represented by a certain NGO. The data subjects are therefore not active participants in the production of the data records being published about them.
If the law cannot protect these indigenous individuals with regards to ownership rights, it is important that the NGO has its own ethical form of consent, that clearly defines how and what the information being collected will be used for. Although a consent policy is not found anywhere on their website or within their publications about the missing persons project, the founder of the organization said “we do ask for consent when conducting an interview with the families of a missing person” (2019). However, how the NGO defines their consent policy is unclear. “We send each family who has contributed to one of our projects, one of our publications,” Borgmann replies after being asked whether or not the families knew of and agreed to their contributions being published both on and offline (2019). With a situation as unsettling as the war, a lot of the time families of missing individuals would reach out to UMAM workers for help in finding their loved ones. When individuals are as desperate and vulnerable enough to beg for any information they can get about their lost families members, consent should be a top priority in persevering the family and individuals safety. According to Borgmann, they would not collect consent if an individual reached out to them to find their missing person, because they didn’t feel the need for it when the individual is asking them for information and not the other way around. Along with the lack of defined consent, the choice to not ask for consent at all is another weakness of UMAMs data collection process.
Before handing over their data to the Red Cross, the verification process of the data collected was predominantly achieved through reexamining old newspapers and open sourcing. “Indigenous knowledge like all knowledge is changeable and permeable and is often overlooked”, but this wasn’t the case for UMAM as they were aware of the varying narratives and opinions that may come from the families who gave interviews (Anderson, 2005, p.11). One important case is that of Odette Salem — whose two children had been kidnapped during the civil war. At first, she had reported that the Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt was to blame for the kidnapping of her children; with time, the narrative had changed finding that the children were most likely kidnapped by Syrians. Despite the unreliable nature of oral histories, another weakness UMAM faced with regards to their verification process, was that they would use their own online database for newspapers and old archives.
As UMAM is no longer collecting data on the missing persons project, they should still be held accountable for the database they have contributed greatly too. Similarly, as they are still displaying works from their exhibition and publications they themselves have printed regarding the missing people, it is only fair that they are held accountable if say a family would like to with draw or erase their information from their databases. While civilians are not allowed to access the sensitive interviews with the families of the disappeared, that is done to protect the information of the family against any risk or harm. If a family did however, want to erase the data of their missing member, UMAM believes that this should be done out of respect to the family’s privacy and reasons.
In November 2018, the Lebanese Parliament passed the Law 105 — “recognizing the need to deal with neglected legacies of Lebanon’s war crisis” (ICTJ, 2018). Around this time, UMAM had decided to give up control over all their information regarding the missing individuals, to the ICRC. “When they started collecting individuals DNA samples, is when we gave them all of our records”, said Monika. The ethical concerns of making sure the interviewees were more comfortable with only one organization asking questions, was UMAM’s new priority. The collection of the DNA profiles may be a highly sensitive form of data that requires a certain level of protection for storage. Co-founder, Lokman Slim, however, refused to answer questions regarding the safety and ethics of the data they had collected and how it was protected. His partner, Monika, did however mention that the interviews were stored and kept out of the public domain for safety reasons. Law 105 has only recently been passed in November 2018, which may change the process of how the data is collected and managed altogether. Yet, since UMAM does not have control over the data anymore, they can no longer change, amend, or act on the data of the missing persons.
Another ethical dilemma the NGO might have faced is the idea of a savior complex being forced upon the way in which the small countries history would be perceived. Despite her many years living in the country, the head of the NGO, Monika Borgmann was born and raised in Germany. When asked about how individuals perceive her foreign identity coming in and documenting a very local history she said “I am Lebanese, this is my country too” (2019). While the NGO manages their transparency, with regards to where their funding comes from, pretty well; their only problem is that 99 percent of the funding comes from embassies other than that of the Lebanese. Borgmann believes that the Lebanese government would not be interested in funding a project as such, due to its sensitive nature of not wanting to bring up old wounds of the past. “NGO data may be produced by public funds, but these funds are not provided by the People captured in the data but by intergovernmental bodies and donor states” (Halkort, 2019). Thus, when the majority of the funding is brought in from other countries, a concern for how the Lebanese will be remembered if all their information is under control of other countries comes to question.
Based on our observation and interview, we would rate the organization with a 3/10 grade score due to many of the aforementioned strengths and weaknesses it entails. The fact that they were among the first organizations to collect information about the missing persons should be an enough reason for them to be much willing in sharing what they have. But to our surprise, we learned that UMAM have changed their aim completely and are no longer willing to answer questions about their data policies and collection processes. Similarly, the fact that UMAM has given up the information before the drafting of the law suggests that they are unwilling to even amend their data in accordance with the law’s articles.
By collecting this highly sensitive data on the missing people, in addition to publishing books and exhibitions related to the topic, UMAM is undoubtedly contributing to the way in which these individuals are remembered. For that reason, it came as a surprise when the co-founder was unwilling to answer questions regarding the ways in which their data is managed and protected; in addition to the even bigger shock of asking us to revisit this “no longer applicable” topic of data management. Contrary to Lokman’s beliefs, “Rodriguez-Lonebear reminds us that while data are often seen as products of a digital age, indigenous peoples have long and rich histories of data collection and preservation, and these histories provide a solid foundation for the pursuance of indigenous data sovereignty in contemporary settings” (Kukutai & Taylor, 2016, p.12).
Although UMAM was one of the first to act upon collecting data for the many disappeared individuals, they made it quite clear that they no longer want to be held accountable for the future of the missing persons project. With an aim of providing closure to families, it is quite ironic that they have decided to pull out of the project, just when a law allowing them to help find these missing persons has finally been passed.
References:
Anderson, J. (2005). Access and Control of Indigenous Knowledge in Libraries and Archives: Ownership and Future Use.New York: Columbia University.
Borgmann, M., & Slim, L. (2019, April 27). UMAM Interview with Monika and Lokman [Personal interview].
ICTJ. (2018, December 04). Lebanon Passes Law for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, Marking a Victory for Victims’ Families and for Justice. Retrieved from https://www.ictj.org/news/lebanon-passes-law-missing-and-forcibly-disappeared-marking-victory-victims’-families-and
Naharnet Newsdesk. (2019, April 13). Lebanon Marks Civil War Anniversary, Families of Missing See Hope. Retrieved from http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/259069-lebanon-marks-civil-war-anniversary-families-of-missing-see-hope
Sarikakis, K., Kolokytha, O., & Rozgonyi, K. (2016). Copyright (and) Culture: The governance of audiovisual archives. Info,18(6), 42–54. doi:10.1108/info-05–2016–0019
Taylor, J., & Kukutai, T. (2016). Indigenous data sovereignty: Toward an agenda. Acton, ACT, Australia: Australian National University Press.
