Welcome to issue 104 of the Call to Comms! This week, our technical team explained the humanitarian context issues they had to consider and how they addressed them when designing the Safe Messages System. This TSF solution enables survivors in the Mediterranean to tell their loved ones they’re alive at a particularly traumatic time.
Safe Messages for Survivors in the Mediterranean: Technical And Humanitarian Challenges
Many people are forced to flee their home and face extremely harsh conditions on their journey, including in the Mediterranean Sea. When they are reached by Search And Rescue (SAR) organizations in the Mediterranean Sea, they have spent dozens of hours fearing for their lives in terrifying conditions.
On board the rescue boat, their first worry is to be able to tell their loved one they’re safe; however, it’s not so easy to reach your family from the middle of the sea, in such a sensitive context. Many things must be taken into account when creating a solution to enable people to tell their family they’re safe:
- The safety of survivors and rescue operations
- Possible instability of internet connectivity
- Privacy of personal data
- How to reassure the survivors and their loved ones
The TSF technical team members and creators of this solution shared insights on how they took all of these things into account to create a safe solution adapted to the needs of affected people and the search and rescue organizations. Read more about it here.
Emmanuel JEAN
« I have received a message. As my brother is safe it's really feeling great. We have been waiting for this information but we don't know the specific place where he was rescued, and we can't contact him. »
Extract from the message TSF received from a relative of a survivor
See you in two weeks!
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