WEST BANK-ONLINE SECURITY Palestinian programmers invent hi-tech regional security solution

Record ID: 565921

  • Title: WEST BANK-ONLINE SECURITY Palestinian programmers invent hi-tech regional security solution
  • Date: 25th March 2015
  • Summary: SCREEN SHOWING REDCROW WEBSITE
  • Embargoed: 9th April 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAF50LC6O0MHR7KK5SNM6R2QWRK
  • Story Text: A Palestinian team has designed an online platform that provides up-to-the-minute security analysis to businesses and others, to allow them to work safely in the region.
    The Redcrow website, which launched last month, currently tracks the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, but the design team hopes to roll out the project to cover the entire Middle East by 2017.
    "Redcrow is an online website that conducts constant monitoring of current events, translates them, and sends them out after examining the events as specific texts and maps which explain to the user the current (security) threats as well as potential threats," said CEO Husien Nasr Eldein.
    Working from a small office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the team said they made use of social media and other open sources to gather their information.
    Their product is also being made available on different platforms.
    "For now, Redcrow is available as an online website and we are designing the app (application) for smart phones, which will be ready in the coming two months," said Eldein.
    Last week, Palestinian leaders in the West Bank said they would halt the security co-ordination with Israel which is widely credited with keeping order in the territory and preventing attacks in Israel.
    The Palestinian Central Council, whose votes are usually binding on the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, said it made the decision because Israel had breached bilateral agreements, including by withholding tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians.
    With an ever-changing security landscape in the region, local businesses said they would find the new website extremely useful.
    "It is a website that sends information, specifically security information. For people who work in the security field it is very important because it is a way that combines different areas. I can't be in different places at the same time, so for our security needs and our mobility, and the mobility of our clients and colleagues, it is important to know what the security situation is so if there are any problems, we can use alternative roads or even cancel our meetings. Also, we can alert visitors and show them a safe way to reach us (the hotel)," said Sameh Abed al-Latif, the head of security at an international hotel in Ramallah.
    Relations between Israel and the Palestinian have grown dangerously brittle since the collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks in 2014.
    It's feared the suspension of security co-ordination could have an impact on stability in West Bank cities such as Hebron, Nablus and Jenin, where anti-occupation demonstrations are common.
    Kimberly Davidson, a project co-ordinator for an international NGO, said real-time security information would be invaluable to her and her colleagues.
    "The value from this, and in comparison to what we are using in the moment, is that we are used to having reports, one report in the morning, a weekly report, but as you know things here in the region change so quickly that we really require more accurate information and particularly, you know, around different checkpoints when tensions can flare up. We want to know, we want to be able to inform our staff of what is going on. And the text messaging service, the mapping service - all of that will be used to do that," she said.
    Israel said in January it was freezing $127 million of monthly Palestinian tax revenue in protest against Abbas' decision to apply for membership of the International Criminal Court and pursue war crime charges against Israel.
    The tax money covers around two-thirds of the Palestinian budget and is used to pay tens of thousands of public sector employees.
    European and American diplomats are worried the move could push the Palestinian Authority to the brink of collapse, affecting stability across the occupied West Bank.
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