Redefining Duty of Care in an Age of Real-Time Risk

The current definition of traveler “duty of care” should be refreshed to reflect the world as it exists today. Technology and communication advances give travelers access to more information than ever before – information they expect their organizations to rapidly translate into specific guidance. The exponential rise of technology has also increased the reach and speed of bad actors. Organizations will be expected to assess, communicate, mitigate, and respond at a commensurate speed. Human oversight in decision-making is more important today than ever. Technology will assist in moving faster, but we’ll need to continue leaning on human instincts and judgment to inform our decision-making.

The initiation of high-order violence often arrives without prior notice. It can be in the form of widespread violent civil unrest, such as the 2025 protests in Nepal, or nation-state conflict, like the evolving events in the Middle East. These no-notice events can create unprompted and unanticipated traveler risk.

In environments where violence can spontaneously occur at a local or regional level, many organizations have created a constant situational awareness picture. This is normally supplemented by information feeds. In a mature security organization, travelers are included in this view.

As situational awareness tools have advanced, so have low-friction communications — making it easier than ever for organizations to both see risks and reach their travelers instantly. Global mobile phone coverage, messenger apps such as WhatsApp and Slack, and smartphone email apps give traveling employees easy access to resources and allow organizations to push information updates in real time.

This confluence of situational awareness, communications, and spontaneous violence has resulted in the ability to quickly see where violence is occurring (including at potential high-profile targets like government or military assets), and where potential risk exists in relation to travelers. When organizations can see where violence is unfolding relative to their travelers — and communicate with them in real time — organizations will be expected to warn and mitigate. Put differently, the ability to see a risk is what makes it foreseeable, and foreseeability creates an obligation to act. When nearly 5 billion people have smartphones that see and communicate almost anywhere on the planet, it is reasonable to expect that organizations can do the same for their travelers.

The Reasonability Standard

In this environment, pushing static alerts to travelers may no longer be sufficient. Knowing where travelers are in relation to known risks and communicating with speed will become the standard. When anyone with access to an AI prompt can obtain a (relatively) accurate report of local risks, organizations will be expected to do the same. If an organization has the capability to assess a risk, reach its travelers, and mitigate harm — even in conditions once considered wartime — it should expect to justify its inaction.

In a world of incredible information noise, travelers will be turning to their organizations to be a source of truth. Stock guidance to “shelter-in-place” or “stand fast” is not sufficient in active crises when organizations can see threats unfolding in real time. Technology can help organizations assess risk and duty of care in real time, but it can’t replace human judgment. It will require human expertise, relying on context, training, and experience that machines and stock messaging cannot provide. Humans will be expected to understand the tools at their disposal and have the experience and skills to know when the tools have given them enough to act.

The complexity is evolving faster than our tools can properly sort. Today’s threat landscape introduces complexities that didn’t exist even a few years ago. Increasing the flow of information only helps when it can be translated into actionable intelligence. After a serious incident, blaming a technology platform won’t be a defensible position — whether before leadership or a court. Nor will labeling events as acts of war or force majeure.

A poet once urged, “Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened.” Statutes and civil judgments have yet to pass down the standard of assessing and communicating traveler risks in near real time, but it is coming. It is time we heed the poet’s advice and begin building in that direction.

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