Panic button and in-built GPS mandated in all mobile phones to protect women from distress situations

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in end Aprilissued a circular notifying all mobile phone handset manufacturers to instate a panic button and global positioning system in all handsets by January 2017 and January 2018 respectively.The objective for these features is to provide women in distress situations a facility that allows them to raise an alarm with family members or police authorities so they can be rescued. A built-in GPS can help agencies locate someone quickly in times of crisis.

In terms of modalities, the DoT has notified that all feature phones should have the facility of panic button configured to the numeric key 5 or 9 and all smart phones will have the panic button configured to three times short pressing of the on-off button.The circular states that this facility will provide a security net to millions of women pan India who face distress situations in day-to-day life and will act as a deterrent to perpetrators.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development,who first came up with the idea of installing panic buttons on mobile phones in 2014, will be working in conjunction with DoT and other stakeholders to ensure a similar solution is configured on existing mobile phone handsets. This solution,the circular advises, could be in the form of software patches that will be made available for direct download in the smart phones and installation at the mobile phone shops by the concerned manufactures/service providers.

As the spokesperson of India’s first on-demand safety service available through mobile app or call, our spontaneous response is to applaud the government for this initiative that’s addressing a highly serious and urgent problem across India. While many in public service and civil society have agreed to this initiative in spirit, there have also been others who found loopholes, which will need to be addressed in order for this initiative to be successful and have the mass impact that is so vitally needed.

The first consideration is additional cost of a handset, which will have these capabilities and it is true that women in urban cities will more easily be able to afford this solution compared with women in smaller cities and rural areas. In India feature phones still largely dominate the market because of their affordability and having built-in GPS or other capabilities would hike up the cost on feature phones and even vanilla smart phones. Our take on this is that even if the initiative starts with impacting only middle and upper middle class women in urban areas, it would be well begun and as the adage goes, well begun is half done. Over time technology does get cheaper and more affordable, making it accessible to a greater number.

Then there’s the issue whether these provisions would actually make women safer or is it just a perception. Even now in urban centres women rely on GPS to send distress signals to their friends and family and many cab aggregator apps allow customers to send an SOS in the middle of the ride should they feel unsafe.In our view, the panic button in phones is great news. However this front-end solution needs to be supported with a helpline and response team that results in quick action for the affected party.Our public services like hospitals and police are already stretched in urban areas because of over population and increasing crime rates. At One Touch Response, we envisioned a solution that would provide citizens the last mile support to get to the existing government agencies, as needed, in distress times. At the receiving end of our apps and buttons, we have Command &Control Centres handholding users during the crisis including women in distress situations over the phone as well as an on-ground Immediate Assistance Teams (IATs) that are alerted to reach the caller within minutes. IAT’s then remain with the user till the emergency is resolved or taken to its logical solution.

Our objective is simple, to provide customers an assured quick response and keep them safe. With this notice by the government, we believe we will have further opportunity to collaborate with mobile phone companies to integrate our service and technology, which has open APIs directly in their phones. Generating a revenue opportunity could be part of the equation, which can subsidize the increased cost of including a panic button in the mobile phone, thus making it available to a larger numbers of women.

By Manoj Chandra

The author is the Chief Executive Officer, One Touch Response