There is a new software tool playing the detective's traditional secretary as it creates, stores and retrieves data in cases of human rights abuse.

Martus - at martus.org - calls itself a software tool that allows users to "document incidents of abuse by creating bulletins, uploading them at the earliest opportunity and storing them on redundant servers located around the world".

Martus - meaning "witness" in Greek - addresses the special needs of human rights communities, especially of those working under unsafe conditions.

"Martus is a user-friendly software. We've been using it in Kenya for a year and a half," said Kipchumbah K. John, a systems administrator with the Citizens' Coalition for Constitutional Change, a rights organisation also known as the 4C Trust.

"You can customise Martus to fit your needs, for secure reporting. It uses a cryptology technology to back up information," said Kenya-based John. "It's also in Open Source, so you can customise it."

Kenya is the third Martus server location. The other two are Budapest in Hungary and Seattle in the US.

"We have about 62 organisations working with it. Some use it locally, and don't upload it to a server," John, 28, told.

He said the rights organisations also share data among themselves and are able to act in a coordinated manner on issues. Most organisations put out only a limited amount of information in the public sphere, as the information can be "pretty sensitive", John added.

The Kenyan techie sees Martus as doing a range of jobs - helping to gather data and put it in an electronic format through a simplified method and encrypting data, which means unauthorised people cannot read data easily when it's in Martus.

There's also a secure back-up system that ensures that data stored remotely can always be recovered, John said.