Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

Processing natural language is seen as the task that artificial intelligence is most adept at. However, as journalists and researchers, we need our technologies to be explainable, understandable, and deterministic. Because of this, not all artificial intelligence algorithms are well-suited for our work. And, when every company promises that their AI software is extraordinary, it's difficult to distinguish the empty promises from what the technology can actually do. Working on OpenAleph, an open-source tool for investigative journalism, has taught us a lot about processing natural language. We extract names of people and companies from raw text. We try to infer the language a text is written in. The names of places, cities, and countries are crucial to us, in order to situate data geographically. All of this is heavily reliant on algorithms. But not all algorithms are as good as getting us what we want!

In this session, we'll show you what works and what doesn't. Everything we demonstrate can be used independently of OpenAleph, and integrated into your own workflows. Some machine learning algorithms are excellent at getting us more insights from our data. In addition to this, data that we already have, or public data, can be harnessed to help us identify names of people and places, just based on similarity - no AI required!

Finally, we'll discuss how these approaches compare to using large language models and generative AI. This session is half teaching and discussing common solutions, half workshop. For the workshop part, bring a laptop running Python if possible.

In this hands-on workshop, we will unpack our year-long collaborative investigation into the US data-analytics company Palantir Technologies in Switzerland. We uncovered how the tech giant tried over multiple years to sell its products to various Swiss government institutions and how it failed nearly a dozen times.

At first, our written requests to the authorities all received the same answer: "We have no contracts with Palantir." We went on to extensively FOIA the authorities and found traces of just how hard the company had tried to wriggle its way into Swiss administration, including the Armed Forces. Documents from 59 FOIA requests across 41 federal offices, combined with additional research, exposed the corporate sales playbook of one of the most controversial companies in the world.

The workshop is built around three things we want to share: First, the specifics of the methodology: how we ran a cascading FOIA strategy keyed to the name "Palantir" rather than to specific documents, letting one office's release point us to the next. And how that approach finally surfaced our crucial piece of proof: a classified Swiss army assessment warning against the procurement of Palantir's products on data-sovereignty and reputational grounds. Second, what a year of reading Palantir's correspondence with authorities taught us about how the company actually sells: high-stakes meetings between Palantir executives and senior officials at international security forums and the World Economic Forum, pro-bono pitches that arrive in moments of public crisis, and the persistence with which the company cycles between federal offices after each rejection. Third - in hindsight, which aspects of our research and reporting proved most important once Palantir sued Republik before the Zurich Commercial Court. The interview in Zurich, the extensive right-of-reply process before publication, and the documentation of every exchange. We will share what the litigation has looked like from the inside, and what we would do differently in hindsight.

Links to the investigation:
• Part 1: https://www.republik.ch/2026/02/18/how-tenaciously-palantir-courted-switzerland
• Part 2: https://www.republik.ch/2025/12/09/warum-palantir-zum-risiko-fuer-die-schweiz-wird
• English adaptation on swissinfo.ch: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/war-peace/why-palantir-is-becoming-a-risky-bet-for-switzerland/9066633518:25

AI-generated scam advertisements have flooded European social media platforms, using deepfake videos, cloned voices, and fabricated news stories to lure thousands of victims into fraudulent investment schemes. While the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) was designed to curb illegal and harmful content, these scams continue to spread at scale, exposing major gaps in platform enforcement and regulatory oversight.

This session will show how to investigate AI-driven scam ads and platform failure using publicly available tools, leaked material, and EU tech legislation. We will walk through how to find and identify and analyse AI-generated scam ads and deepfake content, use Meta's Ad Library to map scam campaigns, detect duplication and evasion tactics, and estimate scale. The session will also address how to collaborate effectively with civil society organisations and trusted flaggers to monitor platforms and access specialised expertise.

As part of the presentation, we'll also talk about how to investigate the Digital Services Act in practice, including transparency obligations, systemic-risk provisions and reporting mechanisms; how to document and report on failures of enforcement by platforms and public authorities, and how to connect platform-level analysis to human stories, including victims' experiences. That also includes how to responsibly handle leaked messages, call scripts, and fake trading platforms, balancing verification, security and ethical considerations.

The session will include concrete examples and live walkthroughs, showing how journalists can combine platform data, legal frameworks and human sources to hold tech companies and regulators accountable. 

Many journalists have published investigations, data stories, and visualizations across different outlets, but no single place to display all their work. In this hands-on session, participants will build a simple, professional portfolio website using GitHub Pages, creating a central hub where their work can live together, even without previous web development experience. By writing and modifying small pieces of HTML and CSS together, participants will see how a simple page can gradually become a polished portfolio.

To attend this session, no prior coding knowledge is required. Familiarity with GitHub or basic HTML is helpful but not necessary. After attending this session, participants will have a live portfolio website that they can continue improving and use immediately for job applications, pitching stories, or showcasing investigative work.

Participants should create a free GitHub account before the session: https://github.com/join. It is also useful to install Visual Studio Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/

Materials: https://github.com/ioannapetsiou/DataHarvest-portfolio-workshop

Coordinators of cross-border investigations are welcome to join a session with Coordinators Without Borders, a monthly meet-up for coordinators of cross-border investigations. This will be a social gathering for members of the group and those interested in joining. All are invited to revisit the group’s collaborative attempt to craft the “perfect” memorandum of understanding. This document is an essential part of any cross-border investigation, marking an agreement between journalists over the many elements of the collaboration, including the responsibilities of the coordinator.

Do you have questions or considerations about digital security? Do you need help setting up your hard disk encryption, or do you need advice on how to use a password manager? Would you like security advice on your personal software, hardware, or on precautions when traveling?

Bring your questions for a one-to-one session with our trainers. The individual consultations are suitable for small teams or individuals who have specific questions or face security concerns.

We will connect you with the digital security trainers, who may contact you before the conference to learn more about your concerns.

Topics:

• Hardening your devices
• Securing your accounts
• Spyware concerns
• Checking your digital footprint
• Whatever else you'd like to discuss!

Please note: you need to book a time slot in advance! You can do it HERE.

Calling all tech‑savvy reporters, newsroom technologists, digital‑security and IT staff, emerging‑threat analysts, and forensic investigators to connect, share recent trends, and swap practical solutions from the field in this casual Dataharvest meetup. Bring a brief update on your (newsroom’s) biggest security challenges or a tool/technique that’s helped your work. Conversations will focus on real‑world risks, incident response, and collaboration opportunities. Ideal for anyone responsible for team security, sensitive reporting, or infrastructure who wants to build peer relationships and leave with actionable ideas.

This informal session is intended to bring together journalists who use access to documents procedures within European Institutions and member states. It is the second (in-person) meeting of the informal network of these journalists since it was launched at Dataharvest 2024, but it is open to all journalists and researchers with knowledge of the right to information & access to documents anywhere in Europe. During the meeting, we will present a cross-border guide, a handy resource for journalists making access to information requests to governments and official bodies across borders in different European countries and with the European Union institutions. The guide is meant to provide basic information for each country, such as how to make requests, timelines, and points of contact for each country if assistance is required.

Health is one of the most cross-border beats there is. Pharmaceutical companies, regulators, clinical trials, food and tobacco lobbying, environmental hazards, patient harm – none of it stops at borders. Whether you've been on the health beat for years, have just started chasing your first lead, or are simply drawn to the topic and wondering where to begin, come and meet others working in the same space. The goal is to leave the session knowing a few people you'd genuinely want to team up with on the next investigation.