Dataharvest 2025 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

Large language models and other AI systems sometimes only work because there are thousands of people labeling and classifying information that is then used in training the models. Journalistic investigations are discovering rights violations and misdemeanors by large outsourcing companies, who offer jobs below the minimum wage. In some cases, workers are forced to go through datasets of disturbing data that can affect their mental health. However, tracing this labour chain is not easy. Big Tech companies often turn to underdeveloped countries where they can take advantage of economic conditions and labour needs to employ this activity; scammers take advantage of this under-supervised process. How can you track this outsourcing chain when you are sitting at your desk somewhere in Europe? Journalists who attend this session will learn how to investigate large tech companies and follow the traces of their activities, as well as uncovering labour and human rights violations along the AI supply chain. They will also learn how to contact the right sources and approach workers who are in sensitive situations.

Customs records and open-source databases are a goldmine, but they can also be overwhelming. With so much data, where do you begin looking for stories? How can you be sure that what you're seeing is what you think it is? And how should you organise your findings once you have a good lead?

At a time when international sanctions affect everything from oil to aircraft parts, this presentation offers insights into investigating sanctioned goods, sharing information on the databases and tools and techniques useful for finding original supply chain stories. We will be drawing on our experience of tracking shipments of aircraft parts from western facilities to Russia via India (see: https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/boeing-airbus-russia-sanctions-aircraft-parts-india-intermediaries). We will explain how we trawled through thousands of transactions to find what we were looking for – and how we turned rows of data into actual stories.

AI has moved from niche tech coverage to leading headlines worldwide. Opaque algorithms make life-changing decisions about millions across the continent in health, banking and social security systems. Meanwhile, Big Tech increasingly uses Europe as a base for the resource-guzzling data centres that power modern generative AI development. So where do you start? This hands-on session will walk through a framework for different story archetypes and an understanding of how to generate and pursue story leads. Then, we'll home in on a specific story and how to build an AI accountability investigation from scratch — including following the money behind digital infrastructure, using freedom-of-information laws and collaborating with data scientists to uncover algorithmic bias. Participants will leave the session with an understanding of how to investigate automated systems even when access to code is difficult. Participants who want to go deeper can attend the Level 2 session.

Investigating algorithms is not just about obtaining code. On the contrary, there's so much we can learn from an automated system – whether Al-driven or rule-based – by looking the impact it has on individuals, minorities and marginalized communities. We can examine the people involved in its development and deployment; the companies who profit; the data it generates; and the weight given to the parameters it relies on to make decisions. How do we find this data and approach the investigation? This session is aimed at journalists with previous experience in reporting about automation and AI and those who attended our beginner level session (Saturday, 0930). In this practical workshop we will explore two real, successful cases of investigative algorithmic accountability reporting. These investigations uncovered how automated systems are used for welfare allocation in different European countries. This will be a hands-on session – don't expect ready-made answers. Instead, all participants will start with the same, limited information about the case. Together, we will explore the different methodologies and approaches we can use to uncover how an algorithm works, even when we have little data to start with. During the workshop, we will aim to obtain as many techniques and methods as possible and inspire new investigations.

In this session, we will show the methodology developed by The Guardian to gather and measure content published on TikTok during the UK election campaign. Using this methodology, we revealed how far-right Reform's leader, Nigel Farage, [outperformed all other parties and candidates](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/26/nigel-farage-outperforms-all-other-uk-parties-and-candidates-on-tiktok) on the platform. We also exposed the [political content shared during the campaign](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/04/ukpolitics-how-the-2024-general-election-has-played-out-on-tiktok) aimed at young audiences.
During the session, we will also show how to set up accounts that are located in countries different to the one where the reporting team is based. We will also show the scraper to automatically gather content associated with particular hashtags at various times over several days. TikTok is relatively hostile to scrapers, forcing us to resort to advanced scraping techniques including residential proxies. We will also show how we identify the main content creators, using some metrics from TikTok as well as the number of videos recommended by the algorithm, and how we used the algorithm to manually find more related videos - and therefore Tiktokkers - similar to those we were investigating.

The EU is increasingly dedicating resources and funding to developing technologies aimed at tracking migration flows, using biometric and other sensitive data, and monitoring borders with dystopian automated systems. These systems often target vulnerable groups, such as migrants, who are surveilled and exploited as data subjects without their consent.

While desk research provides a broad overview of funding flows, only firsthand investigations along the Mediterranean and Atlantic borders have enabled us to fully grasp how migration control is being transformed by surveillance and automation. On-the-ground journalistic investigations in Greece, Spain and Italy have revealed that such investments are frequently squandered on automated systems that either fail to function properly or are poorly implemented, resulting in millions of euros wasted. Instead of safeguarding migrants' lives, these technologies often place them at greater risk.

Join this session to learn how to conduct fieldwork research and gather primary-source information on the intersection of migration and technology. Little technical background is required to report on this issue, as its societal impact is immense. We will share our findings and demonstrate how to assess this critical topic avoiding EU hype reflected in money flows, public tenders, pressnotes, etc. while contrasting it with on the ground information.

If you have not yet tried investigating in this part of the world, we will be looking at why it’s worth investigating property owners in Dubai, and how to do it. We will share tools and tricks we used in the Dubai Unlocked collaboration, and also discuss ways of identifying leads and developing a solid story about how the Emirates are used as a safe haven for criminals.