Sex Crime Reporting Just Got Easier: New App Helps Victims Speak Out and Stay Anonymous

A new encrypted app is offering victims of sex crimes in India a safe space to report sexual abuse: survivors can now anonymously provide timestamped evidence of crimes, and even seek medical or legal help.

According to the founder of the Smashboard app, Noopur Tiwari, the encrypted space is created through blockchain to help survivors privately store notes, photos, screenshots, documents, audio and video in a form of a journal or as timestamped evidence.

“We believe that the less personal information we have on anybody, the less hassle of storing it and less fear of getting hacked and losing it,” says Tiwari.

A Thomson Reuters Foundation survey in 2018 ranked India as the most dangerous nation for women, with more than 32,500 cases of rape registered in 2017. The app aims to help victims in the nation speak out without being publicly identified, and plans to give them better access to doctors, lawyers, journalists and mental health experts.