EARLY ACCESS Sinkaos is in early access. Apply to join →
NGO AND HUMANITARIAN WORK

A field app for NGO and humanitarian teams that works offline and keeps sensitive data where it belongs.

Distribution points, mobile teams, needs assessments and logistics in places where the network is weak or absent. Sinkaos puts them on one shared map, keeps working with no connection, and gives you control over who sees what about the people you serve.

Request early access See how it works
THE PROBLEM

The data is in a WhatsApp group, a shared spreadsheet and three people’s phones.

Field teams in humanitarian and development work often coordinate through consumer messaging groups, because that is what everyone already has. Locations of distribution points, lists of households, photos from assessments and notes about who needs what all end up in chats that nobody controls, on personal phones that get lost, shared or seized.

Connectivity is weakest exactly where the work is, in rural areas, damaged towns and at border crossings, so teams either wait for signal to send a report or write it up later from memory.

The people you help are often the ones with the most to lose if their details leak. A map with their locations, a photo with GPS metadata, or a list forwarded to the wrong group can put them at risk, which makes protecting that data part of the work itself.

DISTRIBUTION DAY

A distribution day in an area with patchy coverage.

  1. Eve
    The coordinator prepares the day
    Three distribution points, the warehouse, the routes between them and the assessment form. Each team gets a mission pack with the offline map, its tasks and the team list.
    Mission packsForms
  2. 07:30
    Teams leave coverage
    Team two drives to a village with no signal. Its route was calculated offline and its tasks are on the phone.
    Offline mapsOffline routing
  3. 10:10
    An assessment, recorded offline
    The team fills in the assessment form with photos. Location metadata is stripped from the photos according to the organisation’s policy. The record waits in the encrypted queue.
    FormsPhoto metadata
  4. 11:40
    Stock runs low
    Point B logs that hygiene kits are down to twenty. When the team reaches signal, the warehouse sees it and schedules a resupply.
    InventorySync
  5. 16:00
    Back in range
    Reports arrive on the timeline at the time they were made, marked as late. The coordinator sees the whole day in order.
    TimelineStore and forward
  6. Fri
    Reporting and clean-up
    The week’s data exports for the donor report. Data that is no longer needed is deleted according to the operation’s retention settings.
    ExportRetention
Mission pack on a field worker’s phone with no service: offline map of the area, mission plan, own tasks, team and contacts, keys, documents and three changes waiting to send.
A mission pack with no signal. Demo data.
LOW CONNECTIVITY

Built for teams that are offline most of the day

Offline maps and routing

Vector and raster maps on the phone, plus route calculation from road data stored on the device.

Everything is created offline

Messages, reports, forms, photos, map edits and tracks are saved on the phone and sent when a link appears.

Critical text goes first

On slow or intermittent links, text and alerts are sent before photos and video.

No silent overwrites

Edits made apart are merged where safe, and conflicts are shown to a person instead of being lost.

A field node with no internet

A laptop or small server runs the operation over local Wi-Fi and syncs with headquarters when any link exists, including satellite.

Two clocks

Every record keeps when it happened and when it arrived, so late reports land in the right place on the timeline.

SENSITIVE DATA

Protecting data about the people you help

Sinkaos gives you the controls. Deciding what to collect and how long to keep it stays with your organisation and its data protection policy.

End-to-end encrypted messages and files

Messages, photos and documents are encrypted on the device. The server sees that something was sent, not what it says. The security page lists exactly what the server can read.

Handling labels

Mark operations, objects, files and exports with labels that restrict sharing, export and notification previews.

Photo metadata control

Location and heading in photo metadata are stripped or kept according to your policy, and can be stripped on export.

Roles down to the object

Decide who can see assessments, locations and names, by organisation, team, operation or single object.

Lost or seized phones

Data on the phone is encrypted at rest. Revoke a device, wipe it remotely or on the spot, and see whether the wipe was confirmed.

Retention and deletion

Retention per type of data, with honest wording about what deletion can and cannot reach. Disappearing messages for conversations that should not last.

PROGRAMMES

Where humanitarian teams use it

Distribution pointsNeeds assessmentsMobile health teamsRefugee receptionShelter managementWarehouse and logisticsFlood and storm reliefVolunteer coordination
LIMITS

Where its job ends

It is not a case management system
Sinkaos holds the operational picture: places, teams, tasks, incidents and field reports. Long-term beneficiary records belong in the system your organisation uses for that.
It cannot decide what to collect
Data minimisation is a decision for your organisation. Sinkaos lets you build forms that ask only for what you need, and to delete the rest.
It does not replace a satellite link
With no connection at all, data stays queued on the phone or the field node until a link exists. Nothing live arrives from other teams in the meantime.
QUESTIONS

What NGO coordinators ask

Where is our data stored?
On the hosted service, in EU data centres. On your own servers or a disconnected field node, wherever you run it. See deployment.
Can local partners and volunteers join?
Yes, as guests of one operation, by link or QR code. They see what their role allows, and their access ends when the operation closes.
Does anyone need a phone number to sign up?
No. Accounts use a password, a passkey or your organisation’s single sign-on. No phone number is needed.
What happens if a phone is taken at a checkpoint?
The local data is encrypted and behind the app lock. Revoke the device and request a remote wipe; you will see if the phone confirms it. An optional duress unlock can be set up by your organisation.
Does it help with GDPR?
It supports the work with data export, deletion, retention settings, a subprocessor list and security documentation. Whether your processing is lawful is for your organisation to assess. Our GDPR guide covers location data.
RELATED

Planning a field deployment?

Tell us where you work and what the connectivity is like. We reply within two working days.