Core Feature
Incident Logging and One-Tap Response Plans
Building a defensible incident record with photos, GPS, and timestamps, and pre-loading response plans your team can broadcast in a single tap.
Quick answer
GatherSafe incident reports capture a description, photos, GPS coordinates, and an automatic timestamp, creating a permanent record your organization's admins can retrieve later. Admins can also pre-configure response plans and broadcast one to the entire team in a single tap when a situation escalates.
After something happens, your leadership, your insurance carrier, and possibly law enforcement will ask what your team saw, when, and where. "We think it was around 10:45" isn't a record — it's a guess. Incident logging exists to turn what happened into something documented, permanent, and specific.
What goes into a report
Any team member can file an incident report with:
- A written description of what happened.
- Photos captured directly in the app.
- GPS coordinates, captured automatically at the moment of filing.
- A timestamp, captured automatically — not typed in from memory afterward.
Report content is encrypted the same way group messages are — see our post on how encryption works in GatherSafe for exactly what that does and doesn't protect against. The report becomes part of your organization's permanent, searchable incident history, viewable by leadership from the admin dashboard.
Why automatic timestamps and GPS matter
A report written from memory an hour after an incident tends to drift — times get rounded, locations get approximated. Capturing the timestamp and GPS coordinates at the moment a report is opened, rather than asking the reporter to fill them in, removes that drift. If the incident ever needs to be reconstructed for leadership, an insurance claim, or a legal inquiry, the record reflects when and where the report was actually filed, not a best guess made later.
Pre-configured response plans
Beyond after-the-fact logging, admins can pre-configure response plans for scenarios your team has already thought through — a specific evacuation route, a lockdown procedure, a medical response protocol. When a situation actually escalates, a lead can broadcast the relevant plan to the whole team with a single tap, instead of trying to relay multi-step instructions verbally over a PTT channel in the middle of an incident.
iOS · Photo capture and storage
Attaching a photo uses the iOS camera and photo library pickers, each gated behind its own permission prompt (camera access and, separately, photo library access) the first time you use them. Photos are uploaded to encrypted-at-rest storage and referenced from the report by a signed, short-lived URL rather than stored directly in the message — so links expire rather than staying permanently accessible if leaked.
Android · Photo capture and storage
The same flow applies on Android, using the platform's camera and media picker permissions. On recent Android versions, GatherSafe uses scoped storage — incident photos are written to app-private storage rather than shared external storage, so they aren't visible to other apps browsing the device's photo gallery.
A record you can actually produce
Key takeaways
- Reports capture description, photos, GPS, and timestamp — the location and time are captured automatically, not typed from memory.
- Pre-configured response plans can be broadcast to the whole team in one tap when a situation escalates.
- Photos are stored in encrypted-at-rest storage and referenced by short-lived signed URLs, not embedded directly.
- Reports are retrievable by your organization's admins — useful for insurance, leadership review, or legal documentation after an incident.
Frequently asked questions
What does a GatherSafe incident report include?
A written description, photos captured in the app, GPS coordinates, and a timestamp — the location and time are captured automatically at the moment the report is filed, not typed in from memory afterward.
What is a response plan?
A pre-configured procedure — an evacuation route, a lockdown protocol, a medical response — that an admin sets up ahead of time and can broadcast to the whole team with one tap when a situation actually escalates.
Are incident reports encrypted?
Yes, the same way group messages are: encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. This is server-managed encryption, not end-to-end — your organization's admins can retrieve report content, which is what makes it usable for insurance or legal documentation after an incident.
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