A New Milestone in Slackline Safety:
The Accident & Incident Reports Database
Safety has always been at the core of the slacklining community, and we’re excited to take it a step further with the launch of a new database.
This long-anticipated resource is designed to learn from past incidents and improve safety practices for everyone. Featuring a growing online repository and new, shorter submission forms available in six languages, the database makes it easier than ever to share and access critical safety insights.
By making data accessible to everyone, the ISA demonstrates its commitment to accountability and safety. This new format aligns with the evolving needs of slackliners worldwide, offering a more practical, transparent, and collaborative way to promote safety and empowering slackliners everywhere to take safety into their own hands.
Your Role in Building a Safer Community
This database thrives on community input. Your contributions can help make slacklining safer for everyone.
Report your incident, as minor as it might be, in one of six supported languages. Together, we can ensure the joy of slacklining continues to grow in a safer, more informed way.
We further implemented some key incident statistics into our website, which will update automatically with new reports.
Let’s make slacklining safer through fostering a healthy risk culture within our sport, where you can talk about incidents and accidents and have others learn from them.
A Balanced Approach: Transparency Meets Responsibility
The ISA’s approach ensures transparency while prioritizing the safety and privacy of individuals. Reports are manually reviewed, anonymized where necessary, and checked through a “four-eye principle” process to minimize errors.
This effort is driven by a commitment to protect people—even when they may not protect themselves.
Will we make mistakes and be slow sometimes? Yes, but that’s part of the process. You are also welcome to help us speed up things in a responsible manner!
Why Publishing Accident Reports Is Complex
While the ISA is committed to providing access to critical safety information, publishing accident reports is far from straightforward. Here’s why:
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Checking accuracy of reports
Not all reports are clear or complete. Differentiating between incidents and significant accidents is crucial. Reports sometimes contain conflicting accounts, missing details, or errors that must be clarified. Some incidents might generate multiple reports of the same event. Often additional investigation is needed to verify them and confirm their validity. Volunteers within the ISA will take the time to ensure that accurate information is shared
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Respecting privacy of all involved parties
Images or videos accompanying reports often include graphic scenes and quite often show bystanders who did not consent to being publicly featured. Additionally, European law classifies medical data as critical personal data, necessitating anonymization and adherence to GDPR requirements. Responsibilities on data management need to be defined and data deletion needs to be institutionalized as well. We apply these strict principles on all data. In a smaller percentage of reports full anonymisation has to be applied.
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Respecting Legal Processes
Severe injuries and fatalities can lead to legal proceedings. Publishing reports on these cases prematurely could interfere with ongoing legal investigations or trials. Everyone deserves the presumption of innocence until proven otherwise. Different nations also have extremely varying laws regarding accident reporting, privacy, and liability. The ISA must respect these legal and sometimes cultural nuances.
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