Today, International Human Rights Day, the Benetech Human Rights Program is delighted to announce the release of version 5 of the Martus app and the debut of the updated Martus Project website. With these updates, Benetech is taking a leap towards improving the usability of end-to-end, open source encryption and extending its benefits to rights defenders, activists, journalists, citizen reporters, and other organizations and individuals who rely on secure data collection.
In a guest post published on the blog of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Society on Social Implications of Technology, CEO Jim Fruchterman highlights four general principles that guide Benetech in developing humanitarian technology applications.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact that the United States is negotiating with eleven other countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region, has raised significant concerns about risks to fundamental rights of the world’s citizens. In a story that examines the risk of private data flow within the countries that are negotiating the TPP, Mexican weekly news magazine Proceso cites Benetech VP of Human Rights, Enrique Piracés, on the implications of the TPP for human rights groups and other vulnerable communities.
Collection and archival of sensitive information are core to humanitarian and social justice practices, but all too often security and privacy protections are neglected in such efforts. Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman sat down with WBEZ Chicago’s Worldview guest host Alexandra Salomon for a conversation about the power of open source technology in strengthening privacy and human rights, and about Benetech’s social impact work.
At Benetech’s Human Rights Program, we are focused on helping activists and journalists uphold their commitments to protect and do no harm to the communities with which they work. We are therefore excited to announce the release of version 4.5 of Martus—our free, open source, secure information collection and management software—which includes major updates and usability improvements. Martus 4.5 takes a big step forward towards extending the reach and benefit of open source, strong crypto to the growing communities interested in secure data collection.
