Conclusion This report has outlined important practical, regulatory, and ethical considerations relevant to potential CDR use. For any humanitarian organization or relevant stakeholder interested in exploring the usefulness of CDR and making a fully informed decision about whether to move forward with CDR in a particular context, the following issues are presented as central for additional research and deliberation. •
Consult and include displaced populations. The research for this report included very few semistructured interviews with people who have experienced displacement. In each context under consideration, it is important to understand how people affected by displacement think about the benefits of improved humanitarian assistance compared to the risks to their privacy rights posed by increased monitoring.
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Carry out a risk-benefit analysis. The benefits of CDR use for displaced and mobile populations should outweigh the ethical risks. As discussed at the beginning of this report, the use of CDR should be guided by a specific problem, rather than the technology. Further research should be done on other technologies and methods to ensure that a CDR program is the most suitable and least invasive approach to address the problem.
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Conduct stakeholder mapping and analysis. It is important to understand the interests and constraints (political, legal, financial, or other) of each stakeholder involved in the implementation of a CDR program. The power dynamics between stakeholders are also critical to examine, as they impact many of the relevant ethical issues.
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Undertake additional research on data bias. In most case studies, the population of cell phone owners is not representative of the overall population; cell phone owners often skew towards male, urban, middle to upper class, and non-elderly adults. However, in most of these countries, data is not available on the exact differences in cell phone use between subpopulations. Although CDR will only be used in conjunction with other data sources, it is important to understand how CDR would be biased if no single MNO covers 100% of mobile subscribers in a country, or if cell phone users are not representative of the entire population.
If a humanitarian organization or other stakeholder does decide to pursue CDR in a certain context, we recommend the following steps to maximize the benefits of CDR while minimizing risks: •
Establish CDR infrastructure before displacement-causing events occur. As discussed throughout this report, formalizing data sharing agreements and building sufficient capacity to analyze CDR data takes time and significant investment. If the required agreements and infrastructure are not in place when a natural disaster or other displacement-causing event occurs, the utility of CDR data will be limited because it cannot be used to immediately inform humanitarian response.
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Consult displaced populations in designing implementation. Any humanitarian organization or relevant stakeholder interested in using CDR should apply human-centered design to set up new technology systems and inform analysis. Participatory design approaches, such as trauma-informed survey tools, are crucial for gaining trust and centering perspectives of displaced populations.
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Bring civil society and other humanitarian organizations into the CDR planning and Conclusion
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