Haven: Keep Watch Android

The surveillance app developed by Edward Snowden

We've seen how our phones can become private surveillance instruments by means of recording video with their cameras, for instance. Edward Snowden, the former NSA employee who's whereabouts is still unknown since he leaked confidential documents that revealed how this governmental security agency of the USA spied on everyone, has now gone a step further with Haven: Keep Watch.

It's an application that turns your mobile device into a movement, sound, vibration, and light sensor to detect intruders in a private area. This application is recommended for all those people that need to protect their personal spaces without compromising their own privacy.

Main features and functions

These are the main functions of this application:

• Haven has been conceived for people that want to detect intruders at home, in the office, hotel rooms or any other private space.
• Turn your phone into a sound, movement, vibration, and light detector, keeping an eye on unexpected visitors and unwanted intruders.
• Immediately receive notifications about intruders and remotely or physically access the detections.
• Receive a notification on a phone number of your choice as soon as something is detected.

The app, the APK of which can be downloaded and used freely under an open-source license, combines the native technology of our device with that of other privacy protection apps of the likes of Signal and Tor. Thus, it allows us to take photos and record audio, and send them to the user to the phone number of his choice by means of encrypted messages. All the latter, without storing any files on the cloud.

Control everything that happens in a room without jeopardizing your privacy.

To be able to register all these movements, Haven monitors the activity of our accelerometer to detect any vibration on our phone, the camera, microphone, light sensor, and battery since it also detects if the latter has been disconnected or there's a sharp drop in its charge.

This application has been developed with journalists in mind but it's basically meant for anyone who may be at risk of being forced to disappear.

Requirements and additional information:

• Minimum operating system requirements: Android 4.1.