Civic Safety
The identity, location, personal condition and physical safety of those who participate as Vigías constitute information protected with absolute character. This article operates as a hard limit against any product, governance or operational decision.
The platform explicitly forgoes any functionality that compromises that protection, even when said functionality offers visible benefits in other dimensions. The speed of publication, the richness of metadata, the virality of a finding or the journalistic appeal of an observation are subordinated to the duty of safety.
Observations that entail potential exposure of a Vigía to physical, legal or reputational risk pass through private moderation. Their publication, when it occurs, takes place under modalities that preserve anonymity when that anonymity is the condition of protection.
The platform maintains an active response protocol for situations in which a Vigía has been exposed. That protocol includes legal assistance, content withdrawal, communication with authorities when appropriate, and accompaniment for the time the situation requires.
Commentary
A civic platform that places its participants at risk betrays the contract that founds it. Alerta operates under the assumption that the safety of its Vigías precedes any other consideration. This article formalizes that precedence so that no product pressure can erode it.
The operational context of Alerta (Latin American cities with significant urban violence rates, political sectors with limited tolerance for independent observation, informal networks with retaliatory capacity) makes this article, in practical terms, the most important of the founding document. A single person exposed to harm by a product decision would be enough to invalidate everything else.
The choice of the word "absolute" in the first paragraph is deliberate. Civic safety admits no reasoned exceptions, contextual optimizations or temporary concessions. Any interpretation that relativizes the protection violates the spirit of the article.
Response protocol
The active protocol for exposure situations is described in detail in the Civic Safety annex. Its essential components are the following:
- Immediate triage. A situation reported by a Vigía, by Agent 05 of Saphi Intelligence or by a third party enters triage within a maximum of two business hours.
- Legal assistance. The platform maintains agreements with specialized legal counsel available to exposed Vigías.
- Content withdrawal. The system allows immediate withdrawal of any publication that may compromise the safety of a Vigía, without requiring prior approval.
- Accompaniment. For the time the situation requires, the platform team accompanies the affected Vigía, facilitating the pertinent institutional resources.
What the platform does not do
The platform explicitly forgoes the following practices, even when they offer product advantages:
- Publication of precise geolocation of any observation that may be associated with an identifiable Vigía.
- Public attribution of sensitive observations to identified Vigías without their express consent.
- Sharing Vigía metadata with third parties, including corporate partners, government agencies or media organizations.
- Allowing reverse search by geolocation in public surfaces.
Cross-references
- Article I · Product speed is subordinated to this article
- Article VI · Operational truth coexists with anonymous protection
- Article X · Agent 05 of Saphi Intelligence implements this principle