48 Trial Monitoring: A Reference Manual for Practitioners 5.3 Systems for recording other types of information In addition to information and data obtained from hearings and courts, trial-monitoring operations gather other kinds of information, which may or may not be related to specific cases monitored. These include: • information obtained from non-monitored cases. Such information can be used to support existing findings or present good practices; • information on cases or legal trends that is received through interviews and meetings with stakeholders; • records of advocacy activities, such as meetings held and roundtables organized to present monitoring findings and recommendations; • media reports on interesting issues and monitored cases;54 and • follow-up action by authorities to recommendations issued by monitoring missions.55 These types of information can be referred to as “soft” data. 56 Programmes record soft data in emails, notes for the file and internal reports. However, this valuable information is often dispersed and not readily available when needed. Preserving such information in operations with high staff turnover presents an important challenge. Losing this information might lead to missed advocacy opportunities or the duplication of work. Consequently, it is wise for programme managers to implement systems at the initial stage of a programme that can record and categorize such soft data. The creation of folders according to category and the ability to search the data by keywords in a computer may be helpful. Alternatively, the programme’s electronic database can be designed to include soft data. 5.4 Protecting confidential and sensitive information Any information-management system must make special provision for the storage and handling of confidential or sensitive information. This may include information obtained from closed hearings, pre-trial proceedings, personal interviews or any other information that was obtained on the basis of confidentiality.57 The principle of confidentiality58 requires that strict controls be in place to ensure that confidential information is not available to those who do not need access to it and that such information is not released by mistake. Each monitoring programme will need to pay special attention to protecting confidential or sensitive information in ways that will not disrupt the necessary flow of information within the programme. There are many ways to protect such information. Among the simplest is to mark documents as “confidential” or “sensitive”, in order to alert users that some or all information in the document may not be released. If only some information in a document is confidential or sensitive, then the appropriate sections could be highlighted. Monitoring personnel should carefully plan how notes on privileged information deriving from interviews can be shared within the organization or recorded in any electronic database. An information-sharing protocol59 may be issued by programme managers to clarify exactly what kind of information may be shared with other organizations, and in what circumstances. 54 See Chapter 9.5 “Review of media reports on trials and other cases”. 55  For instance, the Legal System Monitoring Section (LSMS) of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo endeavoured to record follow-up actions to recommendations. The undertaking resulted in the publication of a report entitled “Reforms and Residual Concerns (1999 – 2005)” in March 2006, which looked at the extent to which the authorities had addressed the concerns raised in the LSMS reports and the level of implementation of LSMS recommendations. 56  “Soft” data is used in this context colloquially to refer to information other than that gathered through hearings, which is more official in nature, constituting “hard” data, in that sense. 57  See also Chapter 4.5, “Access to closed hearing” and Chapter 4.6, “Access to investigation and pre-trial proceedings and materials”. 58  See Chapter 8.1.4, “The duty of confidentiality”. 59  See Chapter 12.3, “Confidential and semi-public reporting”.