Innovating Verification: New Tools & New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks Redefining Societal Verification PART OF THE Cultivating Confidence Verification Series About the Verification Pilot Project The Verification Pilot Project of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) convened technical and policy experts from around the world to develop recommendations for new ap- proaches to verification that could enable future progress on arms reductions. As the two-year project moved forward, it became clear that innovating verification could also prompt near-term progress on non-proliferation and nuclear security. NTI partnered with senior leaders from the U.S. Departments of Defense, Energy, and State as well as the governments of Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. That dialogue identified the key challenges that became the subjects of the project’s three expert working groups, which included more than 40 technical and policy experts from a dozen countries. Innovating Verification: New Tools & New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks includes an overview and reports from the three working groups: • The Innovating Verification Overview includes a foreword by Sam Nunn, NTI’s chief executive officer and co-chairman, and key project findings and recommendations across report topics. • Verifying Baseline Declarations of Nuclear Warheads and Materials analyzes how baseline declarations can contribute to near- and long-term arms control and non-proliferation goals and how to verify them without compromising sensitive information. • Redefining Societal Verification explores how advances in information technologies, big data, social media analytics, and commercial satellite imagery can supplement existing verification efforts by governments and increase contributions from outside experts. • Building Global Capacity considers the value of expanded international participation in the verification of nuclear arms reductions and how this participation can increase confidence in nuclear threat reduction efforts among all states. The project builds on Cultivating Confidence: Verification, Monitoring, and Enforcement for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2010), which outlined key issues that states need to address to ensure that nuclear weapons reductions can proceed in a safe and transparent manner. B Innovating Verification: New Tools & New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks Innovating Verification: New Tools & New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks Redefining Societal Verification July 2014 PART OF THE Cultivating Confidence Verification Series Cover Images: © iStockphoto Print Report Design: Dinsmore Designs Copyright © 2014 by the Nuclear Threat Initiative All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit- ted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the copyright holder. For permissions, send an e-mail request to [email protected]. The views expressed in this publication do not reflect those of the NTI Board of Directors or institutions with which they are associated. ii Innovating Verification: New Tools & New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks Contents Acknowledgments . v Contributors . vi Redefining Societal Verification Working Group ...........................vi 1 . Executive Summary . 1 Recommendations. 4 2 . Introduction . 6 3 . Transformative Information Technologies: Lessons Learned . .13 Telegraphy .......................................................... 13 Radio .............................................................. 14 Commercial High-Resolution Satellite Imagery ........................... 15 Lessons Learned ..................................................... 18 4 . New Media and Geospatial Tools . .19 5 . The Monitoring Continuum: Observing to Mobilizing . 25 Observation for Societal Verification ................................... 26 Mobilization for Societal Verification .................................... 32 6 . Potential Models of Societal Verification . .35 National Observation ................................................. 36 National Mobilization ................................................. 38 Cooperative Observation .............................................. 39 Cooperative Mobilization. 40 7 . Enabling and Connecting Experts in Societal Verification . 43 8 . Technical Challenges . 47 Identifying the Interested Population for Societal Mobilization ............. 47 Defining Motivations for Societal Mobilization ........................... 49 Redefining Societal Verification iii Finding Meaning in the Noise .......................................... 49 Managing Data Volume ............................................... 50 Fusion of Multiple Platforms ........................................... 50 Data Openness ....................................................... 51 Tools to Analyze Datasets beyond Twitter ................................ 51 Challenges with Language ............................................. 51 Evasion and Countermeasures ......................................... 53 9 . Policy Challenges . .54 Data Collection and Use .............................................. 55 Collection Concerns Specific to Mobilization ............................. 56 Disclosure of Information ............................................. 56 Privacy and Personal Data ............................................. 58 Perception Principle .................................................. 60 Trusting the Data ..................................................... 60 Human Subjects ...................................................... 61 Protection of the Reputation of Industry ................................. 61 Effect on Confidence Specific to Mobilization ............................ 62 Treason and Espionage ............................................... 63 Protections for Participants ............................................ 64 Public and Private Ownership of Data and Access ........................ 65 Protecting Anonymity ................................................ 67 10 . Recommendations . .68 11 . Appendix . .70 Existing Law ......................................................... 70 U.S. Expert and Public Opinion ........................................ 71 International Perspective on Privacy .................................... 73 12 . Endnotes . .75 iv Innovating Verification: New Tools & New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks Acknowledgments Acknowledgments This report would not have been possible without We also appreciate the many officials and experts the contributions of many. who briefed the working group and provided crit- ical insights. Special thanks to Douglas J. Naquin, We are extremely grateful for the advice and input Dylan Schmorrow, Lisa Costa, Jill Egeth and their of the senior government officials who helped shape team at MITRE; Anthony Stefanidis, Arie Croi- this effort from the beginning. In the United States, toru, Andrew Crooks and Jacek Radzikowski this list includes Donald L. Cook, Rose E. Gottemo- from the George Mason Center for Geospatial eller, Anne Harrington, and Andrew C. Weber; in Intelligence; and Paul Richards from Columbia the United Kingdom, Bryan Wells and Peter Sankey University. from the Ministry of Defence; Norwegian Ambassa- dor Kåre Aas; and Christer Ahlstrom at the Swedish Finally, we are indebted to all our colleagues at NTI. Ministry for Foreign Affairs. We also thank Richard In particular, we thank Carmen MacDougall and Gullikson and Gary Stradling of the United States Mimi Hall for their guidance and communications Defense Threat Reduction Agency and Kjetil Køber expertise. Special thanks are due to Elise Rowan of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. who managed the production of the project’s results to a successful conclusion. Tammy Ware was indis- We are grateful to NTI Co-Chairman and Chief pensible to the success of the project as her support Executive Officer Sam Nunn, Vice Chairman Des was both professional and personal to us and to all Browne, President Joan Rohlfing, and Executive the working group members. We also are grateful Vice President Deborah Rosenblum for their stra- to interns Lauren Callahan and Sahil Shah and to tegic vision and collective feedback. We would also Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow Jessica Bufford for like to thank the NTI Board of Directors for their their contributions to the project. ongoing support, in particular NTI President Emer- itus Charles B. Curtis. Corey Hinderstein Vice President, International Program Achieving the central aims of this project would not have been possible without our working group Andrew Newman, Ph .D . members. These highly respected experts have been Senior Program Officer, International Program extremely generous with their time and energy, and we have done our best to ensure that this project Kelsey Hartigan reflects their collective wisdom. Program Officer, International Program Redefining Societal Verification v Contributors Contributors REDEFINING SOCIETAL VERIFICATION WORKING GROUP Chair: Corey Hinderstein Frank Pabian, Ph.D. Vice President, International Program Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory Nuclear Threat Initiative Senior Open-Source Nonproliferation Analyst, Joint Research Centre Erica Briscoe, Ph.D. European Commission Senior Research Scientist Georgia Tech Research Institute Kurt K. Siemon, Jr. Director of the Office of Nuclear Verification, Office Kelsey Hartigan of Nonproliferation and International