A former detective has teamed up with a leading chief technology officer to launch a high-tech solution to aid survivors of domestic violence and secure their critical information.
Nansen Digital Forensic Service provides tech services for survivors of domestic violence, along with human resource staff and case workers, in order to detect and manage the risk of technology-facilitated abuse.
It was founded by Rose MacDonald, a former detective and digital forensic analyst with nearly two-decades of experience in law enforcement, and Andrew Collins, an ex-chief information officer and CTO in healthcare, commercial and federal government sectors who also volunteered as a Lifeline counsellor for 10 years.
Nansen’s Chain-FS is a zero-trust cloud storage solution aiming to give individuals total control over their most critical personal data in a form of stage that cannot be read, modified, shared, downloaded or deleted by anyone else.
This is done through bringing the security properties of the blockchain to the cloud.
The product is aimed at empowering survivors of domestic violence to protect their critical information to assist with escaping the situation. Access to important identification and financial documents, for example, is crucial with assisting in this process, but how to store these items can be a significant problem.
To assist in building its solution, the Nansen team has partnered with the United Nations Women’s Organisation, and domestic violence support agencies around the country.
Through the use of Chain-FS, users can open their own bank accounts, access housing, apply for jobs and begin to rebuild their lives.
Nansen Digital Forensic Service’s Chain-FS is a finalist in the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence in the Software Innovation category. The Software Innovation category is sponsored by TechnologyOne.
The InnovationAus Awards for Excellence winners and finalists will be celebrated at a black-tie gala dinner at The Venue Alexandria in Sydney on Wednesday October 30. You can book your tickets here.
Nansen has trialled its Chain-FS product with domestic violence organisations in New South Wales and Victoria, in partnership with the UN Women’s Organisation. The company has also received funding through the federal government’s export development grant, which assisted it to scope markets in the United States, Europe and south-east Asia.
The main competitors for Chain-FS are existing large players in the storage space such as Dropbox and Microsoft Azure.
While Dropbox is sufficiently simple and user-friendly, it does not have the full security that a blockchain-based platform does, while Microsoft Azure has strong security but can be challenging to use for some individuals.
The Nansen team believe Chain-FS has found the best of both worlds, with full security on an easy-to-use platform.
The Chain-FS platform is secure and immutable, but is also accessible and straightforward to use. This is done through offering a zero-trust, vendor-agnostic layer sitting between cloud storage and the public blockchain, bringing fast, cost-effective storage for crucially important documents.
Nansen has now expanded to a team of three, spread across the ACT and Wagga Wagga in New South Wales.
If you or someone you know is impacted by family and domestic violence or sexual assault call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au
Looking for brand exposure in front of Australia’s tech ecosystem? Purchase a table of 10 for the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence and have your logo displayed on screens across the venue and in the event programme as a ‘Table Sponsor’.
The InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence are supported by: Australian Computer Society, Investment NSW, Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Technology Council of Australia, TechnologyOne, National Artificial Intelligence Centre, CSIRO’s ON Innovation Program, Reason Group, Q-CTRL, University of New South Wales, and IP Australia.
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