Although we are constantly working to find ways to ensure that the Hub poses the least potential risk for our users, keep in mind that ultimately it is your responsibility to keep yourself safe. By accessing the Hub or viewing any Content therein, you acknowledge that WITNESS bears no responsibility whatsoever, as to any threats to your safety which result from access to or use of the Hub. If you have any further recommendations or suggestions, please contact us at hub[at]witness.org.
In addition to the standard issues of copyright and obscenity addressed by most sites to which users upload content, you need to be aware of the potential safety and security issues related to the public distribution of human rights-related content taking place on the Hub. These safety and security concerns may affect you whether you are uploading your own content or browsing content uploaded by others and also apply to those individuals depicted in the content.
If you feel you are at risk, here are some actions you may take to protect your identity online:
Excellent overviews of online security and privacy can be found both in English and other languages at:
Although WITNESS is constantly working to identify measures that may be taken to ensure that the Hub poses the least potential risk for our users, it is your responsibility to keep yourself safe. If you have any further recommendations or suggestions, please contact us at hub[at]witness.org.
CivicActions hosts the WITNESS Video Hub on hardware housed in a secured facility at a leading Internet backbone and colocation provider. The Hub is contained in its own VPS (Virtual Private Server), which provides security separation from any other hosted websites and services. The virtualization technology being used is OpenVZ
We use Openwall GNU/*/Linux , a security-hardened server platform, on both the "host system" and the VPS. CivicActions - and not a third party - are responsible for systems and security administration of both, as well as of the website itself. This work includes, but is not limited to, keeping track of new vulnerabilities being discovered and applying software updates as necessary.
Website access is not logged by CivicActions or WITNESS, and no IP address logging occurs on our servers. PHP sessions are expired after 23 days (2,000,000 seconds). Content is served to non-registered users via Akamai, and therefore logs of that traffic are subject to Akamai log policy. A secure upload area -- one in which access logs are not retained -- will be made available in the near future.
While it is possible to browse media on the Hub without registering, in order to use the more participatory functionality on the site such as commenting, Groups, or Discussions, one must create an account using a valid email address.
WITNESS will not sell, share or trade any information you provide during registration, nor will it knowingly provide such information to another service or operator of another site without your permission.
WITNESS will not trade its database of user information with another site for any reason.
Only other registered users can see the information you choose to share publicly about yourself.
Every computer has a unique network IP address which identifies the address from which your computer is contacting the Hub. Depending on a particular user’s connection, this address may be traceable only to your ISP or internet service provider, or to a specific business, school, or home, as the case may be.
Upon access to The Hub, The Hub will initiate a preliminary IP check to see which country you appear to be logging in from. If the location is determined to be a high-risk location, The Hub will automatically recommend using our secure upload feature. Please note that WITNESS cannot ensure the accuracy of a particular IP address and is simply offered as a convenience to assist you in determining the IP address which is being used to link you to The Hub.
It is important that we are able to identify those attempting to abuse the site or other users, and are able to prevent further abuse. For this reason, WITNESS will track IP addresses for all users of the Hub to ensure that it has the ability to monitor and prevent abuse of the site. WITNESS will not track IP addresses for those uploading content to The Hub, as all users must have a valid account to upload.
When you write something on a publicly accessible portion of the Hub, please note that the content of this text may be available for view by others indefinitely, whether on the Hub itself or indexed by search engines. You may delete media that you have uploaded to the Hub.
Hosting your media on the Hub is free, secure and independent. We will never sell, share or trade your name or data to a third party. We recommend, where possible, that you host sensitive content on the Hub rather than on third-party commercial sites.
Should you choose to host your videos with third-party sites and to embed these videos to the Hub, please be aware that we cannot hold these third parties accountable for this content or for what is done with it. More importantly, we are not responsible for the security of any personal information you share with these third parties when you upload video to them.