Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) is proud to announce our award to OpenArchive, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing human rights by empowering people to collect, verify, and securely preserve mobile media using distributed backends. Through this collaboration, OpenArchive will be able to support decentralized backends for the Save app. This will enable people on the ground capturing images and footage of world events to leverage IPFS and Filecoin and other decentralized storage options via their mobile device.
Smartphones are increasingly becoming a powerful tool for capturing human rights violations. However, many of these recordings are currently stored on vulnerable platforms that do not provide sufficient privacy protections or preservation of this vital media. When data is in the hands of a single company, it is susceptible to censorship, manipulation, or system-wide failure–putting the records of human history at risk. Decentralized technology offers a better alternative: it allows at-risk communities to own and control records to ensure transparency, accountability, and durability.
“Every day, witnesses and citizen reporters bravely capture breaking world events–and all too often human rights violations–on their phones. At OpenArchive, we work to enable them to securely share, verify, and preserve this crucial media to ultimately bring accountability and justice.” said Natalie Cadranel, Founder and Executive Director of OpenArchive. “We’re thrilled to work with FFDW to build the web we want by implementing and deploying decentralized technology to empower witnesses to protect and preserve truth.”
OpenArchive created and maintains Save, a secure archiving app that helps people share, archive, verify, and encrypt their mobile media. They can do so by securely uploading it, keeping it safe and organized for the long-term, and capturing crucial metadata to further authenticate it. With support from FFDW, OpenArchive is enhancing their existing archival tools to support decentralized storage solutions through Save. This work will ensure that history’s first responders will have access to secure and resilient decentralized storage to protect and preserve humanity’s most important information.
Additionally, as part of the award, OpenArchive will embark on a campaign to educate people and organizations around the world about the benefits of adopting decentralized storage protocols by equipping them with tools and educational resources. OpenArchive’s work will also focus on empowering at-risk communities to move away from the single-point-of-failure infrastructure that they rely on today.
“Our mission is to permanently preserve humanity’s most important information,” said Marta Belcher, board chair of the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web. “We are proud to support OpenArchive’s work to preserve critical human rights data using the decentralized web.”
Learn more about FFDW award programs here!