Conflict Minerals: IT and the Trade in Conflict Minerals

Oct 21, 2014 | Maija Palmer, Financial Times
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The next time your mobile phone buzzes in your pocket, think tungsten. The hard, steel-grey mineral is crucial to the component that makes phones vibrate. It is also used in ballpoint pens, lightbulbs and in the wiring of heated car windscreens.

Since last year, any listed US company making such items has been required to report exactly where its tungsten comes from. Tungsten, along with tantalum, tin and gold (collectively known as 3TG), is a “conflict mineral”, often mined under exploitative conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo and sold to fund warfare in the region.