A mock-up of the I Sea app. The actual app, as released, would never show a boat because it lacked the capacity to do so.
Photograph: Grey Group
Posted on 06/21/2016 2:39:57 PM PDT by Swordmaker
The I Sea app claimed to help people call lifeboats to refugees by locating their vessels, but actually showed static images of the sea
An app which purported to offer aid to refugees lost in the Mediterranean has been pulled from Apple’s App Store after it was revealed as a fake.
The I Sea app, which also won a Bronze medal at the Cannes Lions conference on Monday night, presented itself as a tool to help report refugees lost at sea, using real-time satellite footage to identify boats in trouble and highlighting their location to the Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station (Moas), which would provide help.
In fact, the app did nothing of the sort. Rather than presenting real-time satellite footage – a difficult and expensive task – it instead simply shows a portion of a static, unchanging image. And while it claims to show the weather in the southern Mediterranean, that too isn’t that accurate: it’s for Western Libya.
The app was developed by Grey Group, an ad agency in Singapore that’s part of global advertising giant WPP. When it was initially released, it received favourable press from publications like Wired, Mashable, the Evening Standard and the Reuters news agency. Now, however, it’s been pulled from the iOS App Store by Apple, for breaching app store guideline 1.1.6, which bans “false information and features”.
Moas said: “We were dismayed to discover that real time images were not being used. We have since discontinued our relationship with Grey for Good and spoken candidly about our disappointment to the media.”
At the time, Grey’s executive creative director, Low Jun Jek, implied that the app was far more functional than it ended up being. “The app uses an algorithm that divides the satellite images of the sea into thousands of smaller plots,“ he told Wired. “Each of these plots is then sent or assigned to different users so they can view the plot through the app. The user will receive a notification on their phone that will prompt them to check their plot – a simple task that will take no more than one minute at most.”
While it is common, particularly among advertising and public relations agencies, to demonstrate proof-of-concept creations that are several steps away from actually working, it is rare to present them as though they are finished and functional.
The failure of the I Sea app wouldn’t have come to light were it not for a distributed effort on the part of developers worldwide, led by famous Twitter user SecuriTay, to tear down the programme and uncover how it worked. Red flags abounded: a login page that was hard-coded to always reply “invalid username / password!”, always showing the same coordinates to users, and the fact that the app was developed by an ad agency, rather than a group with prior experience of handling complex, expensive satellite imagery.
Anyone looking to “rescue” rapeugees and gibsmegees ain’t right in the head.
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I wonder how the Gray Group was monetizing this “I Sea” App. Was it being sold, or, seeing how its creators were an advertising agency, did it have in-App ads?
I’d love to see what permissions users gave the app which was (and probably still is) on a number of phones.
“Anyone looking to “rescue” rapeugees and gibsmegees ain’t right in the head.”
There are tons of videos on their boats capsizing taking down hundreds at a time. Some people might get off on those.
Saw sub sank same
The I Sea app, which also won a Bronze medal at the Cannes Lions conference on Monday night, presented itself as a tool to help report refugees lost at sea......if the fraud had been pointed out last week, it would have taken the Gold. It's the *goal* that's the important thing. /s
>Some people might get off on those.
I see them the same as a swarm of locusts or angry bees coming to take what I have worked for and them failing.
Whatever the reason, a lot of people seem to enjoy mass deaths.
Sure, the softest heads around.
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