[ddj] Juicy Data for Journalists: Campaign Against the Arms Trade

[Lucy Chambers]

Just a heads up that Campaign Against the Arms Trade is looking into some
pretty interesting data. They are currently building up to DSEI, the
world’s biggest arms fair <http://www.stopthearmsfair.org.uk/> to be held
in London, and are keen to help journalists use their data - contact
details for them below!


Full post can be seen on:
http://schoolofdata.org/2013/07/16/hacking-the-arms-trade/


Campaign Against Arms Trade <http://www.caat.org.uk/> recently hosted its
first Data Hack Day, celebrating the anniversary of its commitment to open
up arms trade data by inviting designers, programmers and journalists to
propose data-driven disarmament projects for the future.

Participants at CAAT hackday in London, June 2013. Image credits: Ian
Mackinnon/ Artists & Engineers

The weapons industry represents the sharp end of foreign policy. It is
notoriously secretive, prone to
corruption<http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/corruption/> and
receiving of staggeringly disproportionate government subsidy [1]. Combined
with its uniquely destructive nature, it is ripe for public oversight. And
citizens can only hold their governments’ actions to account if those
actions are transparent and clearly presented.

Since 1998, EU member states have been legally obliged to publish summaries
of the military items they approve for export [2]. While the detail and
accuracy of these reports has increased slowly over time, each state uses a
different system and quality varies considerably. Worse, the format of
choice is still PDF, in which numeric data is stored as unstructured
digits, stripped of context and difficult to extract. The volume of
documents is also overwhelming.

CAAT undertook scraping of UK arms export licence reports last year. Every
quarter, when new figures are released, our software requests the
generation of reports through the Export Control Organisation’s web
portal<https://www.exportcontroldb.bis.gov.uk/eng/fox/sdb/SDBHOME> and
downloads the results, a task which may take several days to complete.
Next, a parser converts these text documents into structured,
machine-readable formats. Finally, reports are cross-checked in an attempt
to disaggregate licences which have been bundled together in the interests
of market anonymity of manufacturers.

EU-wide reports are also published annually, though these contain only
yearly totals for each member state, broken down by general category of
weapons and destination country. As their format changes every year, the
digitisation of this data cannot be automated to the same degree.

Once sanitised, data extracted by CAAT is published online to our export
browser web applications (UK
data<http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/export-licences/>
, EU data<http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/export-licences-eu/licence.en.html>)
and as raw data through GitHub <https://github.com/caatdata>. We have
always stressed the importance of making raw data accessible so as to
foster reuse by other organisations and enthusiasts.

Part of this openness is an understanding that CAAT’s abilities stop at
analysis and interpretation of the figures. After a year of scraping and
organising we had amassed a great deal of important data, but it was clear
that there was much untapped potential for presentation and visualisation.
Following a chance meeting with one of the founders of Design
Jams<http://www.designjams.org/>,
we were introduced to the idea of a hack day and began planning an event
for open data enthusiasts to get their hands on our datasets and see what
they could make of them.

With the events team Artists &
Engineers<http://www.artistsandengineers.co.uk/>,
we convened a hive of talent at Kings College’s Anatomy Theatre Space on
June 22nd and spent a day scrutinising CAAT’s datasets and objectives,
discussing successes and failings of prior art, and proposing innovative
projects for both direct intervention in the arms trade and better
transmission of information to the public.

Participants were invited to consider a spectrum of data presentation
goals, from simplistic, attention-grabbing representations of single issues
at one end, to complex, cross-referenced navigation tools for experts at
the other. All of CAAT’s previous tools have fallen into the latter
category, being primarily designed with staff researchers in mind, but we
were especially keen to hear ideas directed more at members of the public
who might not have any previous knowledge of the arms trade and related
issues.

In the morning session, participants were presented with the data and, in
groups, asked to discuss project ideas around six
challenges<http://www.caat.org.uk/events/hack-day-2013-results.php#challenges>
–
concrete data design needs identified by CAAT staff. These included: an
automatable one-page summary of arms trade data on a specific country for
passing to journalists when a new conflict breaks; a graphic overview of
the international arms trade that could be printed as a poster to show
clearly where campaigning efforts are most needed; and building connections
between arms export data and other global datasets to show at a glance to
which countries weapons sales are the most irresponsible. Keeping the
session verbal and non-practical resulted in a torrent of great suggestions
from the groups. Discussions roamed beyond the initial briefs and our
designated scribes struggled to keep up.

The afternoon session was used for rapid prototyping. New groups were
formed around favourite suggestions from the morning discussions and the
teams were given just two hours to produce a demonstrative model. The
results were necessarily simple but very well conceived. One team built a
spoof shopping site<http://www.caat.org.uk/events/hack-day-2013-results.php#uk-arms-direct>
as
a way to make known data about arms sales more accessible, while another
designed a crowdsourcing
suite<http://www.caat.org.uk/events/hack-day-2013-results.php#consequencebase>
for
matching materiel found in conflict zones with its manufacturer to show the
trail of responsibility.

CAAT came away from the hack day with a wealth of designs for future
data-led projects and a growing relationship with London’s open data
community.

Our next challenge is DSEI, the world’s biggest arms
fair<http://www.stopthearmsfair.org.uk/>,
which will take place in East London in September. We’ve been steadily
gathering structured data on participating weapons
manufacturers<http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/mapping/organisation?tag=dsei-2013>
and
will be looking for ways to share it with campaigners and activists to help
uncover and confront this deadly event.

Open data enthusiasts who are interested in exploring arms trade data are
invited get in touch at data[at]caat.org.uk <data at caat.org.uk>. Whether
you’re a data journalist, a graphic designer or a programmer, CAAT is keen
to help you create something amazing with our data. Whatever your skill
level, CAAT has a project that you can take on to make a rewarding
contribution to a safer and more transparent world.

—

[1]  Most strikingly, the UK employs 160 civil servants to promote military
exports and just 129 for all other industries combined. For more
information on subsidies, see
http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/jobs-economy/subsidies/.<http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/jobs-economy/subsidies/>
[2] Under EU Council Common Position 2008/944/CFSP, see
http://www.eeas.europa.eu/non-proliferation-and-disarmament/arms-export-control/index_en.htm.<http://www.eeas.europa.eu/non-proliferation-and-disarmament/arms-export-control/index_en.htm>
- See more at:
http://schoolofdata.org/2013/07/16/hacking-the-arms-trade/#sthash.hidTdIjo.dpuf


-- 

**

*Lucy Chambers*

Project Coordinator  | skype: lucyfediachambers  |  tel: +44 7909 330731  |
 @lucyfedia <http://twitter.com/lucyfedia>

The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>

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