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UN Ditches Google for Taking Form Submissions, Opts for an Open Source Solution Instead

The United Nations opts for an open source alternative to Google Forms.

google logo, un logo, cryptpad logo with three lines and a arrow between them

Formed in 1945 after the second World War, the United Nations (UN) is an international organization tasked with promoting peace, security, and cooperation among countries.

While recent events might make you question if they are effective at what they do, it is good to have a forum where the world's nations can come together to deliberate and vote on critical issues.

Interestingly, CryptPad has now become the preferred platform for collecting form submissions, at least for one of their recent initiatives.

UN Adopts CryptPad: What to Expect?

a screenshot of the united nations open source principles endorsement form made using cryptpad

As part of the UN Open Source Principles initiative, the UN has invited other organizations to support and officially endorse these principles. To collect responses, they are using CryptPad instead of Google Forms.

This initiative aims to promote the adoption of open source technologies within the UN, while encouraging collaboration, ensuring transparency, and safeguarding user data.

If you don't know about CryptPad, it is a privacy-focused, open source online collaboration office suite that encrypts all of its content, doesn't log IP addresses, and supports a wide range of collaborative documents and tools for people to use.

Cryptpad interface

While this happened back in late March, we thought it would be a good idea to let people know that a well-known global governing body like the UN was slowly moving towards integrating open source tech into their organization.

So far, the UN seems to be moving in the correct direction with their UN Open Source Principles initiative, ditching the user data hungry Google Form, and opting for a much more secure and privacy-focused CryptPad.

They’ve already secured the endorsement of sixteen organizations, including notable names like The Document Foundation, Open Source Initiative, Eclipse Foundation, ZenDiS, The Linux Foundation, and The GNOME Foundation.

I sincerely hope the UN continues its push away from proprietary Big Tech solutions in favor of more open, privacy-respecting alternatives, integrating more of their workflow with such tools.

Via: FOSS Force

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