How we built Cizorah: anonymous civic safety in 12+ Indian languages

Many people never report corruption, crime or an emergency because they don’t want to be identified. Cizorah was built around one promise: you can ask for help or report a problem without giving up your identity. Every decision in the product follows from that.

Five things in one app

Instead of asking citizens to install several apps, Cizorah brings five modules together:

• Civic reporting — anonymous or identified reports, with GPS auto-tagging
• Missing items — community-powered recovery of stolen phones, bikes, cars, wallets and bags
• Missing persons — AI facial matching plus community sightings
• Emergency SOS — one-tap alerts for police, ambulance or fire
• Chat — end-to-end encrypted, anonymous messaging with authorities

Anonymity by design, not as a setting

Sign-up is just a username and password — no phone number, no email. A reporter’s identity is not shared with police by default; they can choose to be identified on a single report. GPS verification keeps location data honest without exposing who the person is.

Keeping reports trustworthy

Anonymity only works if the people who respond can trust what they receive. Claude AI categorises reports, flags likely fakes, merges duplicates, matches stolen items and runs facial matching for missing-person cases. Together with a five-layer fake-prevention system, this keeps the signal clean.

Built for India’s languages

A safety app has to speak the user’s language. Cizorah is available in 12+ Indian languages, so reporting a problem or raising an SOS never depends on knowing English.

The technology

The website is built with Next.js 16, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS v4, Three.js and Framer Motion, hosted on Firebase Hosting. The app is a single Flutter codebase for Android and iOS, backed by Firebase — one codebase means features reach every platform together.

Where it is today

The Android app is live on Google Play and free for citizens. iOS is coming next.

Read the full Cizorah case study, visit cizorah.com, or talk to us about building your own app.