NMC, Soft Masters develop App to monitor elections

The National Media Commission (NMC), has developed a mobile application (App) dubbed: “Ghana Elections Monitoring App” to help determine the circulation of fake news ahead of the December general election.

The App was developed in collaboration with Soft Masters and has a software that shows the exact location and the time videos or pictures are taken to determine their authenticity or otherwise.

Mr George Sarpong, the Executive Secretary of NMC at a press briefing in Accra said the initiative was to discourage the circulation of fake news and promote peaceful, credible, free, and fair elections.

He said the App would help in addressing questions of misinformation and fake news and that if somebody submitted a material about an incident at a polling station, the system would enable stakeholders to know in real time whether such incident was true or fabricated.

Mr Sarpong said the App was an upgrade over the previous monitoring system the Commission deployed for previous elections and said journalists and media houses could sign on to the platform, where an account would be created for them to enable them to upload videos and pictures during the upcoming elections.

He said the platform would be an independent system, where people could verify information and facts about happenings during the election period.

Mr Sarpong said there was nothing complicated about the 2020 general election and asked the media to desist from communicating fear and danger to the citizenry.

Dr Ben Adu, the Chief Executive Officer of Soft Masters, said the application would be rolled out in the next three weeks.

He said the system would allow every mobile phone to capture videos and pictures but time-stamp each picture or video with both the GPS location and the address.

Mr Adu said once such a system was put in place, it would deter people who had intentions to churn out false information.

Dr Adu indicated that institutions that would act on information that would be provided were being assembled so that they could act promptly.

He said the software would be test-run after which it would be rolled out.

Earlier the NMC engaged some stakeholders, including the Electoral Commission, the Ghana Armed Forces, the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association, National Commission for Civic Education, the National Peace Council, and the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons on the App.