Civilianization of Warfare | Society | Legal Safeguards

Wartime technologies that empower civilian-led crowd-sourced intelligence—such as Ukraine’s “e‑Enemy” and “Delta” battlefield-tracking apps—are transforming the rules of engagement. These tools leverage everyday smartphones to collect and transmit real-time military data, effectively turning civilians into sensors. While these innovations strengthen resistance, they raise profound International Humanitarian Law questions: do such actions strip civilians of their protected status under the Geneva Conventions?

Civilianization of Warfare

Ukraine’s apps allow citizens to report troop movements, drone incursions, and artillery strikes. Such crowd-sourced intelligence has reportedly prevented Russian advances, boosted defensive operations, and provided material evidence for war-crimes investigations (time.com, wired.com).
But as Wired points out, when civilians pick up smartphones and transmit geospatial data, they may become nodes in an intelligence system—ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance)—and thus risk losing their civilian status (wired.com).

Direct Participation in Hostilities (DPH)

Under Article 51(3) of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, civilians lose protection “for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities” (wired.com).
The ICRC identifies three criteria for DPH: (1) threshold of harm, (2) direct causation, and (3) belligerent nexus (opiniojuris.org).
West Point’s Lieber Institute holds that providing targeting data—even via app—fulfills these criteria. For example, geo-tagging incoming aircraft directly enables military response; a civilian using the app arguably becomes directly involved (lieber.westpoint.edu).

Legal Consequences and Uncertainty

The murkiness of DPH in digital contexts creates alarming risks for civilians:

• Temporary Combatant Status: A civilian might lose protection only during the act of reporting—and regain it immediately afterward. But the “status-switch” doctrine remains unclear (wired.com).
• Targetability Risk: If a civilian is deemed a direct participant, they may become a lawful target—even inside their homes or hospitals (lieber.westpoint.edu).
• Legal Obligations to Warn: As required by Geneva Convention IV, parties must warn civilians acting as sensors. Ukraine has not clearly informed users of these risks, potentially exacerbating vulnerability (lieber.westpoint.edu).

Expert Debate & Broader Implications

Academic scholars echo concern. Lonneke Peperkamp warns that “civilianization of warfare” blurs combatant boundaries and heightens civilian harm (cambridge.org).
Open-source intelligence developers stress proportionality and harm thresholds. But legal frameworks are struggling to keep pace amidst rapid adoption of civilian tech tools .
Moreover, civilian hackers and remote participants—such as those delivering targeting data—may similarly be swept into DPH debates (airwars.org).

Toward Clarity: Safeguards and Legal Reform

To mitigate this legal limbo:

• State Duties to Warn: As per IHL, states like Ukraine have a duty to inform app users about risks of becoming lawful targets during reporting activity (opiniojuris.org).
• App Design Safeguards: Limiting reporting to non-tactical data, anonymizing sources, or timing submissions to avoid immediate military use could reduce DPH risk.
• Regulatory Guidelines: International bodies or the ICRC may need to issue practical frameworks clarifying when digital reporting constitutes DPH—and recommend standard warnings to users.

Conclusion

Civilian war trackers underscore a new frontier in modern conflict: ordinary citizens acting as de facto intelligence nodes via their smartphones. While these tools provide strategic advantages and aid justice initiatives, they simultaneously blur the legal distinction between civilian and combatant. Under current IHL, civilians lose protection when directly participating in hostilities—a principle for which these apps present no clear resolution.

To protect civilians while preserving innovation, governments and international authorities must urgently develop legal clarity, user transparency, and safeguards. Without such reforms, civilians leveraging novel technologies risk unintended exposure to lethal consequences—transforming everyday defense into existential peril under the laws of war.