Data-mining is the practice of creating a database by extracting information from text or video documents of multiple formats. This can be done manually, algorithmically, or by a combination of both.
Manual data-mining begins by determining a set of organising principles for the data, including how the information should be categorised. These principles are determined not only by the content of the source material, but also by considering how that information will ultimately be analysed or presented.
The computer science algorithms in the domain of automated data-mining are known as ‘information retrieval’ (IR) algorithms. Algorithmic data-mining is a powerful mechanism to search vast amounts of content for keywords or phrases, and alongside machine learning processes can be employed to retrieve relevant images, audio, and video from large datasets.
I.112 The Index of Repression
Updated 25 Feb 2026 - Date of Incident
- 2019 – Ongoing
- Location
- Germany
- Forums
- Legal Process, Web Platform
- Commissioned By
- European Legal Support Center (ELSC)
- Summary
- For decades, across Europe and the US, acts of solidarity with Palestine have been silenced by states, and by institutions. Since the genocide in Gaza escalated, from October 2023 onwards, incidents of repression have increased across civil society. The Index presents data collected by the ELSC, drawing patterns between almost 2,000 such incidents, in the UK and Germany.
I.109 A Cartography of Genocide: Israel's Conduct in Gaza since October 2023
Updated 08 Oct 2025 - Date of Incident
- 07 Oct 2023 – Ongoing
- Location
- Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories
- Forums
- Legal Process, Web Platform
- Commissioned By
- Self-Initiated
- Summary
- Since October 2023, we have closely monitored Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the resulting extensive civilian harm. Comprehensive cartographic analysis, published as a web platform and in-depth report, reveals patterns of violence which indicate a systematic and organised campaign to destroy life, conditions necessary for life, and life-sustaining infrastructure.
I.116 The Architecture of Genocidal Starvation
- Date of Incident
- 18 Mar 2025 – 01 Aug 2025
- Location
- Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories
- Forums
- United Nations, Parliamentary Inquiry
- In Partnership With
- World Peace Foundation
- Summary
- A ceasefire is not enough. The Israeli military’s weaponisation of aid and starvation to displace and destroy Palestinian society will not stop as long as Israel controls aid distribution. We show how Israel has imposed a deadly aid system through GHF ration stations, while dismantling a proven civilian-led model, to concentrate Palestinians in Rafah and push Gazan society toward collapse.
I.110 The Evros/Meriç River: A Century of Border Design
- Date of Incident
- 1926 – 2025
- Location
- Evros/Meriç river, Greece/Turkey
- Forums
- Web Platform
- In Partnership With
- Self-Initiated
- Summary
- First drawn a century ago, the border that separates Greece from Turkey along the Evros/Meriç river at the EU’s southeastern frontier is deadlier and more opaque than ever. FA/Forensis built an interactive platform that unpacks this complex and lethal border infrastructure, and examines the present-day condition of the border against the transformation of the river landscape over the past century.
I.106 Chemical Fire at Marathon Refinery
- Date of Incident
- 24 Aug 2023 – 28 Aug 2023
- Location
- Garyville, Louisiana, USA
- Forums
- Media, Web Platform
- In Partnership With
- The Guardian, Earthjustice, Healthy Gulf, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, The Descendants Project, Boundless Community Action
- Summary
- When a leaking petrochemical tank at the Marathon Petroleum refinery in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ caught fire, it produced a thick plume of toxic smoke that spread for miles over neighbouring communities. Authorities claimed that nearby residents were unaffected, even as reports of severe health impacts emerged. Fearing a cover-up, some of those residents asked FA to investigate.
I.103 The Grenfell Tower Fire: Situated Testimonies
- Date of Incident
- 14 Jun 2017
- Location
- Grenfell Tower, North Kensington, London
- Forums
- Citizens' Tribunal, Media
- Commissioned By
- A coalition of lawyers representing bereaved families, survivors and affected local residents
- Summary
- The Grenfell Tower Fire was a generational tragedy for London and the UK, ultimately claiming 72 lives. Using a technique called 'situated testimony', we produced seven video interviews with bereaved family members, survivors, and nearby residents, aided by a 3D model of the tower and its surrounding environment. These interviews were screened for the first time as part of Grenfell Testimony Week.
Attacks on Aid in Gaza: Preliminary Findings
- Date
- 08 Oct 2023 – 25 Apr 2024
- Summary
- As part of an in-depth investigation into Israel’s attacks on aid in Gaza since October 2023, we are releasing a series of preliminary findings and a map of the attacks we have documented to date. Our analysis shows the systematic targeting of civilians seeking aid, aid infrastructure, aid convoys, and personnel responsible for aid distribution.
Mass Burials at al-Shifa Hospital
- Date
- 14 Nov 2023 – 08 Apr 2024
- Summary
- Human remains surfaced amongst the ruins of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza after Israeli forces withdrew on 1 April 2024. Our analysis of visual evidence of the destruction of al-Shifa reveals that the bodies of those killed during the second invasion were bulldozed and that four makeshift burial grounds—including a mass grave—created after the first invasion were desecrated.
I.84 Drift-backs in the Aegean Sea
- Date of Incident
- March 2020 – Ongoing
- Location
- Aegean Sea
- Forums
- Legal Process, Human Rights Report, Media, Parliamentary Inquiry, Web Platform
- In Partnership With
- Forensis
- Summary
- Asylum seekers crossing the Aegean Sea are intercepted within Greek waters or arrested after they arrive on Greek shores, beaten, stripped of their possessions, and then forcefully loaded onto life rafts and left to drift back to the Turkish coast. FA/Forensis verified and mapped evidence for over 2000 such ‘drift-backs’, demonstrating the scale of this violent and illegal border defence practice.
I.97 Destruction of Medical Infrastructure in Gaza
- Date of Incident
- 07 Oct 2023 – Ongoing
- Location
- Gaza, Palestine
- Forums
- Legal Process, United Nations, Human Rights Report, Media, Web Platform
- Commissioned By
- Self-Initiated
- Summary
- Since 7 October 2023, we have aggregated news reports of Israeli military attacks on medical infrastructure in Gaza. Our analysis suggests that hospitals in Gaza have been subjected to a pattern of intimidation, direct targeting, siege, and occupation by the Israeli military over the course of the 2023 invasion.
I.92 'Tear Gas Tuesday' in Downtown Portland
- Date of Incident
- 02 Jun 2020
- Location
- Portland, Oregon, USA
- Forums
- Legal Process, Exhibition, Media
- Commissioned By
- Self-Initiated
- Summary
- Over the summer of 2020, Portland's police force deployed large amounts of tear gas to suppress local demonstrations against racialised police violence. Focusing on a single representative day—2 June 2020—we simulated the path of the toxic tear gas clouds as they spread widely across the city centre, demonstrating that the concentration levels were in serious excess of recognised safe thresholds.
SP.91 Fire in Moria Refugee Camp · Supported Project ↗
- Date of Incident
- 08 Sep 2020
- Location
- Lesvos, Greece
- Forums
- Legal Process, Exhibition, Media
- Commissioned By
- Lawyers for the Moria 6
- Summary
- The fire which destroyed the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos was at least the 247th outbreak to have occurred in and around the overcrowded camp since 2013. Six young asylum seekers who came to be known as the 'Moria 6' were accused of arson and jailed. FA and Forensis reconstructed the fire’s spread, casting significant doubt on the basis for those convictions.
I.76 Dispossession and The Memory of the Earth: Land Dispossession in Nueva Colonia
- Date of Incident
- 1960s to the present day
- Location
- Nueva Colonia, Urabá Antioqueño, Colombia
- Forums
- Legal Process, Exhibition, Human Rights Report, Truth Commission, Web Platform
- Commissioned By
- The Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition of Colombia
- Summary
- This investigation shows how the dispossession of campesino farmers in the Urabá Antioqueño region of Nueva Colonia was achieved by a combination of physical violence, environmental transformations and legal means.
I.75 The Black Boxes of Disappearance: Enforced Disappearance in the Siege of the Palace of Justice
- Date of Incident
- 06 Nov 1985 – 07 Nov 1985
- Location
- Bogotá, Colombia
- Forums
- Legal Process, Exhibition, Media, Truth Commission, Web Platform
- Commissioned By
- The Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition of Colombia
- Summary
- Our investigation examines the actions of the Colombian security forces in the aftermath of the 1985 siege of the Palace of Justice that resulted in the enforced disappearance of cafeteria workers, students, visitors, guerrillas, and judges.
I.73 Digital Violence: How the NSO Group Enables State Terror
- Date of Incident
- 01 Jan 2015 – Ongoing
- Location
- At least 45 countries worldwide
- Forums
- Legal Process, Exhibition, Media, Web Platform
- Commissioned By
- Self-Initiated
- Summary
- Supported by Amnesty International and the Citizen Lab, Forensic Architecture’s Digital Violence investigation is a multidimensional study of the global use of the malware Pegasus made by Israeli cyber-surveillance company NSO Group.
I.71 European Arms in the Bombing of Yemen
- Date of Incident
- 26 Mar 2015 – Ongoing
- Location
- Yemen
- Forums
- Legal Process, Exhibition, Human Rights Report, Web Platform
- Commissioned By
- European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
- Summary
- Since 2015, airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen have constituted grave human rights violations. Partners across the Investigative Commons developed an interactive map to reveal the extent to which arms producers and governments in Europe continue to profit from arms exports despite evidence of their substantial contribution to the military operations of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
I.68 NSO Group’s Breach of Private Data with ‘Fleming’, a COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Software
- Date of Incident
- 01 Mar 2020 – ongoing
- Location
- Israel and around the world
- Forums
- Exhibition, Media
- Commissioned By
- Self-Initiated
- Summary
- In May 2020, an unprotected database belonging to Israeli cyber-weapons manufacturer NSO Group’s COVID-19 contact tracing software called 'Fleming' was left exposed. NSO denied there was a security breach. Forensic Architecture analysed a sample of the exposed database, which suggested that the data was based on ‘real’ personal data belonging to unsuspecting civilians.
I.60 Police Brutality at the Black Lives Matter Protests
- Date of Incident
- 25 May 2020 – Ongoing
- Location
- Minneapolis, MN and across the US
- Forums
- United Nations, Web Platform
- In Partnership With
- Bellingcat
- Summary
- Protests against racialized police violence have swept the US, following the killings of George Floyd and others. Those protests have themselves been met with egregious brutality by police. With Bellingcat, we built a comprehensive archive of that systemic violence, to support accountability efforts.
I.59 Pushbacks in Melilla: ND and NT v. Spain
- Date of Incident
- 13 Aug 2014
- Location
- Melilla, Spain
- Forums
- Legal Process, Media
- In Partnership With
- European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
- Summary
- The case of ND and NT v. Spain was the first trial at the European Court of Human Rights to address pushbacks at Europe’s land borders. The Court’s decision to acquit Spain was based on a gross distortion of facts. Using data from asylum applications and spatial analysis, we demonstrate that no legal routes to ask for protection are available to Black migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa.
I.58 The Killing of Mark Duggan
- Date of Incident
- 04 Aug 2011
- Location
- Tottenham, North London
- Forums
- Legal Process, Exhibition, Media
- Commissioned By
- Lawyers for the Duggan family
- Summary
- Mark Duggan’s killing by police led to the most widespread social unrest in the UK in a generation. A decade on, what happened remains unclear. Using information in the public domain, we analysed both the event of the shooting, and the official investigations, in closer detail than ever before.
I.46 The Battle of Ilovaisk
- Date of Incident
- 24 Aug 2014 – 03 Sep 2014
- Location
- Ilovaisk, Ukraine
- Forums
- Legal Process, Media
- Commissioned By
- European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC)
- Summary
- The victory of pro-Russian separatists over the Ukrainian army in the battle for control of Ilovaisk was a defining moment in the 2014 conflict in eastern Ukraine. We used machine learning to search for evidence of Russian military involvement.
I.28 The Enforced Disappearance of the Ayotzinapa Students
- Date of Incident
- 26 Sep 2014 – 27 Sep 2014
- Location
- Iguala, Mexico
- Forums
- Exhibition, Media, Web Platform
- Commissioned By
- Centro Prodh, Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense, EAAF
- Summary
- When Mexican police and local organised crime coordinated to attack a group of students, six people were murdered, forty wounded and forty-three 'disappeared'. We built an interactive platform to explore what happened that night, and to expose the inconsistencies in the state’s investigation of its own involvement in one of the most shocking moments of violence in the history of modern Mexico.
I.14 Pattrn: Open source software for citizen-driven mapping
- Date of Incident
- n/a
- Location
- —
- Forums
- Web Platform
- Commissioned By
- Self-Initiated
- Summary
- PATTRN is an open-source software developed by Forensic Architecture to support participatory, real-time, citizen-led mapping in conflict zones.
I.63 The Death of Adama Traoré
- Date of Incident
- 19 Jul 2016
- Location
- Beaumont-Sur-Oise, Paris, France
- Forums
- Media
- In Partnership With
- Le Monde
- Summary
- The 2016 death of a man in police custody raised troubling questions, but medical examiners later cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing. We built multiple reconstructions of each key moment of the incident, exposing contradictions in the officers' accounts, and gaps between the official account, and the evidence.