Societal Verification: Leveraging the Information Revolution for Arms Control Verification

Verification of arms control and disarmament has historically been a technical discipline limited to experts in the United States and Russia. Moving toward deeper reductions, potential multi-lateralization of arms control and a growing recognition that non-nuclear weapons states and publics will need reassurance on the credibility of disarmament processes leads to a need to explore whether and how non-traditional stakeholders may contribute to verification efforts. With more than 50 percent of the global population now having access to either a cell phone (more than five billion), the internet (more than two billion), or both, the ability to communicate and exchange information globally continues to spawn new thinking on how connection and communication tools could be applied to security challenges. Such platforms are already being utilized in increasingly unique scenarios – from monitoring and reporting atrocities in Darfur to assisting emergency response personnel who are trying to locate disaster victims to tracking and reporting disease outbreaks.