Frequently Asked Questions

The app can help you in several ways:

1. Many people who get into difficulties, whether it be debt, being bullied, being abused, being subject to prejudice or many other such situations, are unsure whether it is something they can or should get help with, whether it is bad enough, whether it is their fault to some extent or how they should go about dealing with it. By using ONRECORD on your mobile phone you can make a private record of what has been happening which you don’t need to share with anyone until you are ready to. You can look at the pattern of events and their severity and decide whether it is too trivial to pursue, or, alternatively, decide it is time to take action. It’s a private reality check.
2. As a free mobile app, ONRECORD provides a simple but sophisticated form of online filing. Upload complete packages of evidence, in which photographs, voice recordings, video, documents along your own descriptions of events, are stored in chronological order along with maps and impact measures. The purpose of making records when things are difficult is to get a result, so although it takes an effort to get started, it’s the outcome that counts. ONRECORD makes sorting through your uploaded records, selecting the ones you want to share or download, controlling how you share your evidence and who you share it with, far easier than any other method. In every circumstance where you might need to open a file to keep a record, in order to be able to manage a situation, ONRECORD makes it more efficient and easier to get the result you want.
3. Good evidence, clearly presented, is your best tool and weapon when trying to overcome difficulties. Use ONRECORD, along with all the advice and guidance we offer on our website and YouTube channel, to stand up for yourself, make your case and be effective.

ONRECORD is suited to keeping records about anything important to you. It is particularly helpful when you might have to go to a court or tribunal and need to show well organised evidence. It gets your records in chronological order and shows the frequency and seriousness of the problem. It is ideally suited to situations where you want to show a pattern of events or a course of conduct over time.

Our website describes many different situations where the app will be useful and suggests how to use it. Our YouTube channel also gives a lot of suggestions and guidance.

There is video guidance on using labels.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

We have used the term, ‘labels’ to describe the headings under which you may choose to describe the problem. It can be very helpful to keep records of different kinds of things that are happening under different labels so that they are more easily searched through at a later date.

There is no limit to the number of labels you can have. They are colour coded to make them easier to see on the timeline. They can be named whatever you like. The colour codes and names of labels can be changed as you wish.  If you create new labels or cases, you can transfer records to a different label or transfer a whole label, with all its records, to a different case if you wish.

There is guidance about the use of labels on our YouTube channel – see the links above.

If you are using ONRECORD to gather evidence you may want to rely on in court or at a tribunal you need to make sure it is trusted and truthful.  To make your evidence most effective, record it as soon as you can during or after the event. The most effective evidence will be a written record of what happened supported by photos, videos or voice recordings to confirm what you say. These attachments to a record give a vivid impression of events which will support your account of what happened.

Be truthful and do not exaggerate.  Simply describe what actually happened in as much detail as possible.  The more you give a straightforward account of what happened, the better. You should make sure you describe the impact of events on you but do not let your description of the events be spoiled by using exaggerated, emotive language.  As much as you can, quote exactly what people said.

Collect and record witness names and contact information.

There is video guidance on how to use the location function.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

Verifying location is a way of proving where you were when you uploaded a record. The ‘Verify location’ option allows you to use the GPS of your device to confirm where you are when you upload a record. This can be key evidence if there may be a challenge to suggest you weren’t where you said you were and prove where you were. Using this option records a latitude and longitude and places the pointer on the spot on the map but does not specify a specific address. You cannot move the cursor. You can see the latitude and longitude recorded in the ‘metadata’ attached to your record.

If you want to enter a specific street address or other named location because the event in your record occurred somewhere else (i.e. not where you are when you upload the record), use the ‘Enter the address’ option.  This will not be a verified location because it is not using the phone’s GPS location service.

There is video guidance on how to amend records.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

ONRECORD was originally designed to help people gather evidence they might use in court.  For that reason, we have deliberately prevented you from editing your records and, once you have uploaded them, you cannot change them. You should never change a record which you might want to use as evidence, even though it may not be quite correct, or even if you get more information, because doing so will undermine your credibility as a witness. It only takes someone to challenge you by asking whether you changed your records, when, in what way and why, to throw doubt on the truth of your evidence and your credibility as a witness.

Instead, you can amend your records.  In an amendment you can give more information, correct any errors in the original record and add more attachments such as photos, documents etc.  This will give anyone looking at your records a clear understanding of how your evidence may have been improved or corrected.

Yes, if you view a record, you will see details showing when the record was uploaded.

There is video guidance on how to download records.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

In the mobile app:

1. Go to ‘My Records’
   1. 1. To download all the records in a case,
         1. Press on the case name and choose ‘Export to Zip’.
         2. The records will be downloaded as a chronology with all the attachments.
      2. To download only selected records,
         1. Tap on the case name of the records you wish to download,
            1. Then tap on ‘View […] Records’.
            2. Tap on ‘Select’ and choose which records you wish to download.
            3. Tap the ‘Options’ and choose either ‘Download Zip’ to get all the selected records plus their attachments or ‘Download pdf’ to get just the records without attachments.

In the web app

1. Login on our website.
2. Go to ‘My Case(s)’
3. Tap on ‘My Records’ of the case you wish to download
4. Select which records you want to download.
5. Tap the ‘Download’ button.
6. Choose whether you wish to download the attachments and whether you want the ‘metadata’ which includes the location information, impact score and date of upload.

There is video guidance on how to use the labels.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

Sometimes records, especially if you are dealing with a complicated problem, need to be sorted under more than one label. For example, you may simply want to record different topics or, if you are gathering evidence about a problem, you may want to record the problem itself but keep separate records of the way the problem is being dealt with. Using ONRECORD, you can create as many labels as you want, colour coded to make them easy to search through (using the web app), or review on the timeline, map or calendar. You can change the name and colour of labels.

There is video guidance on using the impact score.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

The impact score can be used to show which events were most important, whether negative or positive, to you or to other people.  The impact can range from -3 (very negative) to +3 (very positive).  This will show in the timeline where the impact score is shown by the height of the columns.

There is video guidance on using the impact score.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

The web app (but not the mobile app) enables you to search through your records by level of impact, so giving an impact score will help you to find the most important events amongst your records.  Do this by:

• logging in on our website,
• going to ‘My Cases’,
• choosing the case you want to search through,
• tapping on ‘My Records’,
• then selecting the impact level you wish to search for.

We do not show cookie management options because the only cookies we use are (1) in the website and (2) are essential for the functioning of the website and are therefore not optional.  We do not use any marketing or advertising cookies in any of our services.  It is because we do not seek any revenue from the sale of your data or from advertising that we are obliged to require subscriptions to keep the service running.

There are no cookies in either the mobile or the web applications.

No, once deleted your records cannot be retrieved.  This is for security and confidentiality reasons.  If we made copies of your records, in the form of backups, we would have to know when to delete them in order not to be in breach of the GDPR requirement to not save your information after you have removed it.  We have to assume that if you delete your information you want to be sure that further copies are not available elsewhere.

We do not seek any revenue from the sale of your data or from advertising and so we are obliged to require subscriptions to keep the service running.

There are no cookies in either the mobile or the web applications and the only cookies on the website are essential ones for providing the service and are not optional.

You can close your account by:

• logging in on our website,
• going to ‘Billing’ (in the left hand menu) or ‘Manage billing’ (right hand drop down menu),
• choosing ‘Cancel plan’.

This will cancel your subscription.  Please note:  You will be able to continue to login and use your account until the end of your subscription period.  Following that you will have a further 28 days during which you can login and download your records and confidential messages but will not be able to make new records.  After the 28 days, your records, messages and personal information will all be deleted from our server.  This will not be reversible.

Not yet.  At the moment we are only offering connections to professionals.  However, we will be offering the ability to connect to an unlimited number of friends or family members very soon.  The family and friends accounts will be free to them but the data they send you will be included in the data allowance for your chosen subscription level.

There is video guidance on how to receive and send confidential messages.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

Once you ‘Connect’ to a professional, you can exchange confidential messages, with attachments.  Messages are confidential between you and the person who sent them.  Nobody else has access to them.  However, you can choose to convert a message into a record which will then be available to anybody else to whom you have connected and given access to that case.  Converted messages will appear in chronological order along with all your other records in the case.

There is video guidance on using the calendar.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to make records.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to search for and select records.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to set the date and time.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to download your records.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to use the impact score.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to connect to professionals and how to use the confidential messaging.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to use the map.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to use confidential messaging.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to see your uploaded records.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to rename cases and labels.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to use the location function.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on adding attachments to your records.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to use the timeline.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to move records between cases and labels.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to use labels.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to convert messages into records.  Go to our guidance videos on confidential messaging using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance on how to make and change case names.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

By connecting to a professional you are agreeing to give them access to your records for the particular case you choose to share with them.  Professionals have an obligation to keep a record of their work with clients.  This includes a record of the client’s circumstances and any discussion that has taken place and advice given.  In doing so, professionals have to operate within their professional regulations which includes obligations of confidentiality and security of documentation.  For this reason, even when you disconnect from a professional, they have 28 days to download all the material to which they had access while connected to your account.

There is video guidance on the value and purpose of writing a case background.  Go to our guidance videos using the links at the top of this page.

There is video guidance about deleting or moving records, labels and cases.  To view it use the links at the top of the page to go to our video guidance.

Yes, you can delete individual records, whole labels with all the records in them (or you can move all the records to one or more different labels before you delete the label itself) or whole cases with all the labels and records in them (again, you can move all records out of a case to other cases and labels if you are reorganising your records under new case names).

Yes, you can change your subscription level at any time and upgrade or downgrade as your needs change.  Each subscription period is for a minimum of a month and so, when you change you downgrade your subscription level you will get the changed level of service immediately and the new subscription will be taken into account for the remainder of the month involved and shown as a credit on your account.

The only differences between the mobile and the web apps are that in the web application you have (1) the facility for searching through your records and (2) making subscription changes.  In all other ways the two versions of the app are synchronised and offer all the options available.

The location, date and time information attached to your records is key to proving where and when an event occurred.  These data cannot be edited, and that is key to the evidential value of uploaded records using Myonrecord.  Once uploaded, Myonrecord can be used as reliable proof of date, time and location of an event.  However, to get the best evidence you must be aware of these factors:

1. You must have location services turned on for Myonrecord on your device (this is a setting on your device and not on the app).  When uploading a record, choose ‘Save current location’ in Location Options.  This will save the latitude and longitude coordinates of your location at the time of uploading.  It might be argued that a VPN could locate you anywhere in the world and therefore produce misleading location information, so you also need to take a photograph or video to show where you are at the time.
2. When you take a photograph or video, use the ‘Take picture’ or ‘Record video’ options in the ‘Add Attachment’ menu.  DO NOT use the camera app of your device because you will not be able to prove when or where a photo was taken.  Taking a photo or making a video using our app is crucial  with regard to evidential value.  This is because, when downloaded, a photograph has ‘EXIF’ data which lists when and how an image was taken.  Data uploaded using Myonrecord cannot be edited, so the EXIF data can be relied upon to confirm the date and time the photograph was taken.  This is definitely not the case for images taken with the device’s camera app.  The EXIF record of date, time and location of an image taken using the pre-installed camera app of your device, can all be altered.  This means that the EXIF date and time of an image taken using your device camera app cannot be relied upon and will not be of evidential value.  Photographic evidence taken using Myonrecord’s options cannot have been tampered with, making it reliable evidence.

Above all, do not ever put a photograph or video of an event through an editing programme (for example Photoshop), which will immediately invalidate the date, time and location data linked to the image file while also invalidating any other evidential value of the image.  The EXIF data will reveal that an image that has been through an editing programme and make you vulnerable to accusations of faking images.

Finally, remember to make and upload your record at the time and place where the event is occurring or as soon as possible and as near as possible afterwards.