About Mapeo

Mapeo is a free, easy-to-use set of tools for collecting and mapping information.

Mapeo was co-designed and developed with Indigenous communities who face threats to their land such as illegal gold mining, oil contamination and poaching. It was built to support frontline groups to document these activities in order to take community action against them, report key information to authorities, file lawsuits, launch media campaigns, or create maps for land claims. To learn more about how Mapeo is currently being used, see How Mapeo is being used.

Mapeo is open source software that benefits from continued feedback from our users across the world.

Key features of Mapeo

• Simple to use and learn Even if you have never used a smartphone phone before, you can learn to collect data, GPS points and photos with Mapeo Mobile in a few hours. Mapeo Desktop does require some computer skills, but has a simple interface with a limited number of features. For more complex analysis or mapping work you can export your data to other tools. The simplicity of the tools helps support wide community involvement and ownership of projects.

• Works in completely offline environments All data collected or created with Mapeo is stored directly on your device in Mapeo's embedded database, without the need for an internet connection or centralized server. Users of Mapeo Mobile and Desktop can synchronize or exchange data over a local Wi-Fi network. The data never leaves your local Wi-Fi network and does not require an internet connection. Mapeo Desktop can also exchange information via a file using a USB drive.

• Uses a peer-to-peer database All the data you collect using Mapeo is stored locally on your device, not on a server or on the internet. When you synchronize with other Mapeo users in your project, you each get a copy of the data that each person has collected, so every device ends up with a complete copy of all the data in the project.

• Highly customizable You can customize the language, maps and information you collect. You can add detailed offline maps of your area, and change the icons and questions used for data collection. Mapeo has been translated into a number of languages already and anyone can add more.

• Secure, unfalsifiable data All data collected with Mapeo has encrypted logs that can be verified for authenticity. Similar to a blockchain, data is secured by cryptographic proofs, so you can verify that no record in the log has been changed or tampered with. Private projects can be created using secure project keys which limit who one can synchronize data with.