Biography
Raquel Vazquez Llorente, Head of Law & Policy, Technology Threats & Opportunities - WITNESS
Raquel is a lawyer specialized in helping communities use video and technology to document international crimes. At WITNESS she focuses on the threats and opportunities brought by social media platforms and emerging technologies, in particular the challenges of mass archiving social media information that could be used for justice for human rights abuses, and how technologies like artificial intelligence intersect with mis/disinformation and raising authoritarianism. She is often consulted by international accountability mechanisms and groups documenting core international crimes on matters related to the use of digital evidence in legal proceedings, in particular photo and video.
Before joining WITNESS, Raquel was the Permanent Representative to the International Criminal Court for FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights). Prior to that, Raquel helped build eyeWitness, an organization set up by the International Bar Association that developed award-winning technology to verify and authenticate photos and videos. In her role, she led strategic partnerships with technologists, litigation networks and activists that contributed to the documentation and investigation of international crimes in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
Raquel is admitted to the Madrid Bar (Spain). She is a member of the Technology Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court, the Advisory Board of eyeWitness and TRUE Project (Trust in User-generated Evidence Project). She's also a rostered expert at Justice Rapid Response, an organization that deploys specialists to complex international investigations. She’s held visiting research positions on technology and digital evidence at Oxford University and at the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law (2019-20). Her work has been featured in Forbes, TEDx and other Spanish and international media, and she has been recognised as one of the Choiseul 100 leaders of tomorrow. Raquel is part of the inaugural class of European Leaders of the Obama Foundation.
Raquel holds an MSc in International Strategy and Diplomacy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and an Advanced Degree in Law and Business Administration from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
She tweets in English and Spanish @vazquezllorente