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I Sea, App That Claims It Can Find Migrants Adrift in Ocean, Is Called Misleading

A crowded inflatable boat with Syrian refugees drifted in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece in August.Credit...Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

A charitable organization that helps rescue migrants in the Mediterranean has cut ties with I Sea, a mobile app that claimed to help users locate refugees adrift at sea, after outside developers revealed that the app showed users a static image of water, not real-time satellite photos of the ocean.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, or MOAS, announced that it would no longer work with Grey for Good, the Singapore-based design group behind the app. The charity said it had provided advice to the company to help create the app but had no direct involvement in developing it.

“We were dismayed to discover that real-time images were not being used,” said the charity, which is based in Malta. “We have since discontinued our relationship with Grey for Good and spoken candidly about our disappointment to the media.”

Representatives for the Grey Group, the parent company of Grey for Good, a philanthropic arm, have insisted that the project is real and was not designed to mislead users.

Owen Dougherty, a spokesman for Grey Group, said in an email on Tuesday that the company had been clear that the app was in its testing stages. He added that Grey for Good had “some satellite issues to work out.”

The app has been removed from Apple’s App Store, but a cached version showed that the app promised to use satellite technology to allow users to monitor small areas of the sea. When they spotted refugees, they could then tag and report the sighting to the authorities and to MOAS ships. In the cached page of I Sea, the app, which first launched in April, is not marketed as a test version.

In the statement, the charity said that Grey Group had approached them with a goal “to feed MOAS relevant information and engage users in the idea of saving lives.”

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The Apple App Store listing for I Sea promises that users can spot and report migrant boats. The listing has been deleted.

I Sea received positive coverage from several media outlets, including Wired and Mashable. Both MOAS and Grey for Good were recognized at Cannes Lions, an advertising and marketing festival, for their efforts on the app.

But as The Daily Dot reported, the trouble began when developers on Twitter began delving into the mechanics of the app after it was released in April. Led by a Twitter user with the account @SwiftOnSecurity, the group quickly began accusing I Sea of being nothing more than a marketing stunt.

The developers swapped information, including screen shots of a static image and a weather tool that one person claimed was used to mislead users into thinking they were looking at live images of the sea. Others noted that the app had been coded to tell users that their login credentials were invalid.

Developers also questioned why I Sea requested the passport numbers of users who reported boat sightings, information the app’s designers say was requested by MOAS in order to ensure that the reports were reliable. Passport numbers would then be stored and shared with MOAS, Mr. Dougherty said.

In defending the app, Mr. Dougherty said: “For some reason, a developer unknown to us has pushed the story that it is fake or a hoax. Grey Group is one of the most creatively awarded global agencies around, and we adhere to the highest ethical standards.”

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