Monitoring human rights abuses around the world can be dangerous, with data collectors, reporters and community members at constant risk of discovery. The Martus project pits the best of the open-source software world against abusers to create a safe and secure environment in which human rights activists can record and store data on abuses without fear.
If you Google for the word “Martus”, you may well get lost in a list of names, publications and even photography options. Among them though you may find a human rights software application named after the Greek word for “witness”.
Martus is a new tool to battle human rights violations. It makes possible a global human rights reporting system, which creates, stores and retrieves abuse information. It addresses the special needs of the human rights community, especially of those working under dangerous conditions.
“It’s very user-friendly and we’ve been using it in Kenya for a year-and-a-half,” says Kipchumbah John, the systems administrator of the Citizens’ Coalition for Constitutional Change (4C Trust).
“You can customise it to fit your needs, for secure reporting, for instance using cryptology technology, and to back up information remotely,” says John. “It’s also open source, so you can customise it to fit your needs.”
Kenya is the third Martus server location globally. There are two others, in Budapest in Hungary and Seattle in the United States.
“We have about 62 organisations working with it, in one way or another,” says John. “Some use it locally, and don’t upload it to a server. Organisations also share data among themselves. They are able to act [in a coordinated manner] on issues. Most organisations put out only a limited amount of information in the public sphere, as the information can be pretty sensitive,” says John.
This 28-year-old Kenyan techie sees Martus doing a range of jobs — helping to gather one’s data and put it in an electronic format through a simplified method; and encrypting one’s data, which means unauthorised persons cannot read one’s data easily when it is in Martus.
It can also help with a simple analysis of one’s work — for instance, deciding what kind of issues emerge from which regions, and the outcome of certain issues. In addition, it can help disseminating information by sharing it securely.
Finally, there’s also a secure back-up system. Data stored remotely can always be recovered, adds John. It backs up information replicated across different locations, to protect against its loss.
“In most human rights organisations, security is always important. In most cases, organisations would trust a secure repository system. Their identity and confidentiality of information would not be breached,” he says.
The 4C Trust, which John is part of, works for constitutional change in Kenya. “We are campaigning for a people-driven Constitution,” he says.
Even if someone grabs one’s hard disk, they will not be able to read the data. One can’t simply copy a folder and try to read it in another programme. It won’t work, because it’s encrypted. To get access to Martus data, one needs three things — a username, password and a key.
So, while the battle for human rights is grim, this is just another safeguard against hostile governments or malicious opponents looking to silence opponents. — Tectonic