Narrative Watch

The Problem

While police body cameras were introduced to foster accountability and reform, they have often failed to provide clear answers, with footage remaining difficult to obtain, interpret, and cross-reference with written police reports. Establishing facts from video is complicated by subjectivity; a survey of experts revealed significant disagreement on key details within the footage, such as whether a subject was armed or had complied with commands. Vulnerable public records—such as those in the Tyre Nichols case—face threats of manipulation and disappearance, particularly in the era of generative AI, leaving the public without access to reliable evidence.

The Solution

The Narrative Watch project brought together Starling Lab, The Grio, and Big Local News to investigate discrepancies in police use-of-force cases and preserve essential public records. The team utilized Starling Certificates, cryptographic hashing, and decentralized storage (IPFS and Filecoin) to create immutable, authenticated archives of bodycam footage and web pages. This framework ensured that historically significant digital evidence was cryptographically verified and protected from alteration, creating a transparent audit trail that allows the public to validate the source and integrity of the media.