Announcement: Human Rights Program Releases Mobile Martus Prototype for Android OS

By Benetech, posted on

Benetech is announcing the limited release of a new prototype: Mobile Martus. Mobile Martus is a secure, Android-based mobile documentation application built on Benetech’s Martus technology, which allows users anywhere in the world to securely gather and organize information about human rights violations.

The Mobile Martus application allows users to send crucial data from the field—text, photographs, audio and video—to the Martus network of secure servers. The data is automatically encrypted on the mobile phone, and when being sent to the server, so it is protected in case the phone is lost, stolen or confiscated. A user—or someone they designate—can later retrieve their data, and can search, analyze and report on the information, using the Martus client software.

Benetech’s Human Rights Field Team has provided a limited release of the Mobile Martus prototype to several of its partner groups and technical experts for user testing and is looking forward to rolling out a fully tested Mobile Martus 1.0 to the broader human rights community later this year. Feedback we are collecting from our beta users will help us improve the next iterations of the mobile application.

Our work on Mobile Martus has been made possible by the generous support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Radio Free Asia’s Open Technology Fund.