There are currently over 40 million victims of human trafficking globally, with hundreds of thousands in the United States, according to the National Human Tracking Hotline. The Freedom Shield Foundation (FSF) was founded to combat this staggering problem. They have been operating for nearly a decade and have rescued thousands of women and children from human trafficking. In that time they have also provided trauma care to survivors, as well as global training and resources to fight trafficking. Secure communications are critical to the safety of operatives and rescue missions.
For their mission to succeed, the FSF needs to ensure secure communications as its members travel into austere environments. Wickr provides a safety net of communication tools that they can use to collaborate at home, and abroad.
Increasing terrorist activity in the Middle East has been accompanied by the rise of insurgency groups in Africa that target religious minorities, and family breakdown and poverty across North America to use children as soldiers in Northeast Asia. Freedom Shield has been able to perform rescues, and free victims within these vulnerable communities. They have been able to use Wickr to keep their communications secure, ensuring their missions are confidential. Since using Wickr, they have seen an increase in ground operatives and are therefore able to carry out more missions, with more captives being freed.
“Every feature that has been added to Wickr has kept us home. By that, I mean we have no need to use any other encrypted apps.”
Freedom Shield Foundation team member
FSF uses Wickr to collaborate in emergency scenarios, when it’s necessary to put operatives on the ground to complete missions. Wickr’s end-to-end encryption and versatility has allowed the team to coordinate easily, even in mountainous terrain. Wickr is also used in the United States to enable easy and secure collaboration among team members for mission-planning activities.
Wickr’s end-to-end encryption has also allowed FSF to securely communicate, without the threat of a breach. They have also been able to implement the Open Access feature, that allows them to communicate freely in nations where communication is obstructed by local governments and terrorist groups. And with Wickr’s video conferencing, they are able to visually identify targets. Location sharing has aided the FSF team in identifying hostages and assisting with successfully exfiltrating them.
To learn more about Freedom Shield Foundation’s efforts, visit https://www.freedomshieldfoundation.com/. Wickr can be used in many instances, including, securing, planning and executing missions. Wickr offers collaboration solutions that can be used in many industries. To learn more how Wickr can help your team, visit us at https://wickr.com/
