DIGITAL SECURITY AS A HUMANITARIAN TASK: THE UKRAINIAN VECTOR OF IOCTA IMPLEMENTATION
In today’s world, digital security increasingly emerges not only as a technical or law enforcement function, but as a complex humanitarian task that directly affects people’s lives, institutional stability, and societal trust. With the expansion of digital infrastructure—especially under conditions of war and hybrid threats—the need for a systemic understanding of online security has moved beyond narrow technical solutions. It has become an interdisciplinary challenge, where technology, law, ethics, social responsibility, and public policy converge.
Ukraine, facing full-scale aggression, has become a testing ground for new forms of digital vulnerability: from mass disinformation campaigns and targeted cyberattacks on critical infrastructure to the spread of online violence, phishing schemes, and manipulative content aimed at citizens, military personnel, journalists, and activists. In such circumstances, digital security is no longer just about technology—it becomes about protecting dignity, freedom, and vital stability.
Against this backdrop, the European IOCTA (Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment) methodology, developed by EUROPOL, serves as an important reference point for systemic analysis of digital threats and coordination of interagency actions in the field of online safety. At the same time, directly transferring IOCTA into the Ukrainian context requires deep adaptation—taking into account not only the specifics of war, the legal framework, and institutional maturity, but also the humanitarian dimension of digital reality.
The digital environment has become part of the humanitarian landscape: it is where trust or fear is formed, support or isolation, informational resilience or loss of orientation. Accordingly, digital security analytics must not only identify risks, but also propose development scenarios that protect the human face within the technosphere. Analytical products must include ethical assessment, consider vulnerable groups, and offer solutions based on transparency, cultural sensitivity, and cross-sectoral collaboration.
In this context, Ukraine’s implementation of IOCTA can become a unique opportunity—not merely to integrate into European cybersecurity standards, but to demonstrate a model where security is viewed as part of the humanitarian agenda: the protection of life, freedom, civil rights, and development.
The aim of this article is to outline an analytical framework for such implementation, combining IOCTA’s conceptual approaches with the realities and humanitarian needs of Ukraine’s digital environment. The focus is on interdisciplinary analysis that incorporates legal, social, ethical, and analytical factors capable of ensuring resilience, transparency, and humanity in Ukraine’s digital space.
Methodological Evolution: From IOCTA to the Ukrainian Framework
The methodological evolution of digital analytics—from the IOCTA framework to a Ukrainian humanitarian model—reflects not only the adaptation of tools but a paradigm shift in thinking about the nature of digital threats, the role of analytics, and the values that guide it. Strategic analysis based on the IOCTA (Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment) methodology, developed by EUROPOL, relies on centralized collection of law enforcement data, analysis of criminal group network activity, transactions, cryptocurrency flows, digital infrastructure, and methods of digital exploitation. Its institutional logic is oriented toward preventing organized crime, with key tools including network intelligence, forensics, threat categorization, and preventive assessments by offense type.
In contrast, the Ukrainian methodological framework—shaped under conditions of war, disinformation campaigns, and social tension—draws on a fundamentally broader field of sources: open data, expert interviews, humanitarian observations, social media, narrative content, and signals from communities. This enables not only the identification of threats but also an understanding of their impact on citizens, their emotional responses, levels of trust in institutions, and adaptive capacity. Comparative analysis shows that the Ukrainian model expands the analytical scope from technical assessment to holistic analysis of the social context of threats, which is crucial for strategic management of the digital environment.
A key innovation in Ukrainian analytical practice is the emergence of new criteria for analytical validity—emotional credibility, social relevance, and narrative depth. In the context of hybrid warfare, numbers and facts lose their power if they do not explain how information affects behavior, beliefs, and the psychological resilience of communities. For example, reporting on cyber incidents without analyzing the emotional response of the population or prevalent interpretations fails to provide a full picture of the effectiveness of the informational response. This shift—from formal accuracy to deep explanation—is fundamentally important in post-conflict risk governance.
Within this evolution, the concept of “trust analytics” is emerging, countering the classical “control analytics.” While IOCTA has historically focused on institutional response and monitoring, the Ukrainian model aspires to build cross-sectoral collaboration, where analytics becomes a platform for dialogue rather than vertical management. Trust analytics is based on openness, ethics, clarity, and citizen participation: it does not merely report threats but explains them, informs about consequences, proposes courses of action, and mobilizes collective response. This approach requires new formats: strategic briefs, multimedia cases, educational materials, and visualizations accessible to broad audiences.
Thus, methodological evolution is not only a transition from IOCTA to a localized model, but from formalism to humanism, from vertical analytics to partnership-based analytics, from the language of control to the language of co-participation. The Ukrainian school of digital analytics is emerging as a synthesis of technical precision and human depth, where data are not merely objects of analysis but tools for strengthening communities, resilience, and national development.
Analytical Ethics and the Humanitarian Dimension
Analytical ethics, as the foundation of a new humanitarian analytics in Ukraine, is being shaped in response to the challenges of post-conflict reality—where data are no longer neutral objects but actively influence trust, resilience, and collective action. In this context, digital analytics emerges not merely as a technical tool for processing information, but as a form of contemporary humanism—capable of protecting human dignity, ensuring freedom of choice, enhancing psychological endurance, and fostering cross-sectoral cooperation.
The guiding principles—dignity, freedom, resilience, cooperation—form the value-based framework of analytical practice. They define not only ethical boundaries but also strategic orientations: what is analyzed, for whom the analytical product is created, and what its format and tone should be. These principles are embedded at every stage—from data collection to the presentation of findings in a form that mobilizes collective action rather than generating fear or division.
Within the humanitarian approach, particular importance is placed on integrating emotional intelligence, social empathy, and psychological sensitivity into the methodology of analytical work. This means not only accounting for the psychosocial context of data, but also the analyst’s ability to detect nonverbal signals of anxiety, calls for help, or invitations to collaborate—contained in narrative materials, comments, and public discourse. Such analytical sensitivity ensures a higher level of relevance, as the results not only inform but also support, inspire, and create space for national dialogue.
Ultimately, humanitarian analytics does not reject technical precision—it complements it with ethical foresight. It seeks to ensure that every analytical conclusion contributes to strengthening human potential, social cohesion, and moral leadership in the recovery process. The Ukrainian school of analytics, grounded in this ethic, can serve as an example for other countries undergoing complex transformations and lay the foundation for new standards of professional culture in the digital age.
Multisectorality and Communicative Design
The multisectoral approach in contemporary Ukrainian analytics transforms it from a narrowly professional domain into a public strategic instrument—capable of fostering interdisciplinary interaction, enhancing citizen awareness, and contributing to institutional renewal. This evolution is driven by the need not only to respond swiftly to risks, but also to communicate them in ways that support democratic processes, social cohesion, and cultural identity in transitional and crisis contexts.
At the same time, this transformation reshapes the nature of analytical products—from technical reports to formats tailored to the needs of diverse audiences: strategic briefs for decision-making, case studies as examples of practical response, multimedia presentations for public discourse, and educational materials for building analytical literacy. This approach not only expands the communicative impact of analytics but also turns it into a tool for changing mindsets and behaviors.
In this context, the role of the analyst also evolves: they become not only a generator of data, but a communicator of meaning, a moderator of public dialogue, and a bearer of professional and humanitarian culture. The analyst begins to function as a mediator between spheres of knowledge, power, and civil society, helping to shape a shared language of strategic thinking. Their ability to convey complex information in an accessible, ethical, and substantively rich form becomes critically important for strengthening institutional trust, mobilizing collective action, and fostering sustainable development.
Ultimately, multisectorality and communicative design are not merely means of delivering analytics—they are key mechanisms for building an inclusive informational environment, where analytics serves not only as a source of solutions, but also of meaning, inspiration, and cultural leadership.
Practical Application: Cases, Models, Challenges
The practical application of humanitarian analytics in the Ukrainian context encompasses a wide range of scenarios that respond to the challenges of the digital age and post-conflict transformation. Among the most relevant areas are ensuring digital security for communities, countering disinformation, and providing strategic support for regional reconstruction processes. In each of these cases, analytics serves not only as a tool for risk assessment but also for mobilizing action, creating trust-based mechanisms, and supporting population adaptation to change.
The application of humanitarian analytics faces a number of systemic challenges. Key among them are low levels of institutional trust, fragmentation of cross-sectoral communication, and insufficient competence in ethical analysis among professionals. Overcoming these barriers requires the creation of an environment in which analytics is recognized not merely as a technical tool but as a shared value-based resource—a means of enhancing civic engagement, fostering critical thinking, and cultivating strategic culture.
In response to these challenges, a model of the Ukrainian school of analytics is emerging—one that integrates education, the development of strategic thinking, and the consolidation of the analyst’s societal role as an ethical communicator and cultural leader. This school is grounded in a multidisciplinary approach, where analytical skills are complemented by knowledge of humanitarian principles, practices of social listening, and the art of adapting complex information to the needs of diverse groups. Key components include simulation cases, strategic workshops, interactive modules on countering disinformation, and institutional strengthening of digital resilience.
Ultimately, the practical application of humanitarian analytics is not merely a matter of tools—it is the embodiment of a new type of professional responsibility, where the analyst becomes a driver of social renewal, a bearer of interdisciplinary dialogue, and an architect of trust in the digital environment.
Conclusions and Invitation to Action
The formation of a new identity for the analytical profession in Ukraine is not only an institutional process but also a cultural shift—one that combines technical competence with moral leadership. Analytics is no longer confined to data collection and classification; it is evolving into an integrative discipline that assumes responsibility for strategic thinking, societal empathy, and ethical foresight. In this context, the Ukrainian analyst emerges as a figure capable of merging digital expertise with a humanistic vision, shaping new standards of professional culture.
The creation of a morally and strategically grounded school of analytics is a key step in this process. It is not merely about expanding technical tools, but about laying philosophical foundations that define the meaning and purpose of analytical activity. Such a school should move analytics beyond narrow instrumental application and view it as a source of societal maturity, mutual responsibility, and trust-building in times of uncertainty. It must be based on a multidisciplinary approach, where economic, social, technological, and humanitarian dimensions are integrated into a unified framework of strategic vision.
In this light, an invitation to action is declared—to the academic community, government institutions, and civil society—to jointly cultivate a culture of thoughtful analytics. This culture entails not only high-quality information processing but also a deep reflection on its role in shaping social order, democracy, and human dignity. This invitation is an open call for co-participation, where each sector becomes not only a consumer of analytical products but also a co-creator, a bearer of strategic vision, ethical standards, and civic responsibility. Ukrainian analytics in this dimension is not merely a profession—it is a new form of service that combines precision of thought with depth of care.
