Amnesty International has launched a new smartphone application to help document firearm use in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympic games.
The application, named Cross-Fire, is designed to "allow people living across Rio de Janeiro to report incidents of gun violence, which have been increasing over the last few years," according to Amnesty International (AI).
Instances of gunfire reported by users of the application will be placed on a map of the city. AI hopes the information will allow for a better understanding of the geographic and social distribution of gun violence and help make up for underreporting of the issue to police.
AI's Brazil Director, Atila Roque, noted that guns kill around 42,000 people in Brazil annually, with a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities.
"The application is a tool to give more visibility to the tragic reality thousands of people across Rio de Janeiro have to live with every day and a way to urge the authorities to take some real steps to tackle this crisis," Roque said.
The development of Cross-Fire is part of AI's campaign "Violence Has No Place in These Games!," which seeks to draw attention to human rights violations committed by Brazilian security forces in the context of the upcoming Olympics, which start next month.
The application will be in a testing phase for six months, and data collected during July will be presented during a press conference in Rio on August 2.
