Researchers at the University of Utah have developed an app that lets people report incidents of hate.

To fill an existing gap in the reporting of incidents of hate — whether the gap exists in victims reporting incidents to local police or the local police reporting incidents to the federal authorities — researchers created the Hate Incident Reporting App to make reporting easier for victims or witnesses. According to its developers, the app enables users to report on incidents of all types, from derogatory language scrawled on a bathroom stall or a homophobic slur yelled from a passing car to violent assaults.

The app enables users to confidentially file reports of such incidents. To file a report, users are asked about the location of the incident. They are then given the option to upload a video or a photo of the alleged incident. The user is then asked to classify the type of bias experienced from a list of options that includes religion, disability, gender, race, identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity or other. The user is then asked to categorize the incident from options such as property damage, propaganda, verbal or violent.

The purpose of the app is multi-fold, according to the researchers. It gives victims a chance to report incidents anonymously that they may be too afraid to report, such as an incident against an undocumented person who fears going to law enforcement. It also enables users to quickly report on the incident in the moment so that details aren't forgotten. Likewise, the data collected from the reporting can be used to enhance hate-crime research and help researchers determine patterns that potentially signal violence.

"We decided to create this while we were doing research on hate crimes. The overall quality and completeness of available data is terrible," said Richard Medina, professor of geography and one of the app's developers.

"This is about research. We have no motivation to be biased. We'd like to see it used nationally to get better hate incident statistics, and to understand why, how, and where people are active in hateful incidents, and how that offends or hurts people," said Medina.

Although still in the pilot stages of development, the app is currently available on Google Play and is soon to be available on Apple's App Store.