Women safety apps rise after Disha rape

MOST OF THE APPS MENTIONED BELOW HAVE HAD MORE THAN ONE LAKH DOWNLOADS

After the Disha rape-murder case, women safety apps are on the rise. Some of these apps send the current location of the smartphone user using a long touch of the power button or with other simple gestures.

Crimes against women have not shown a downward trend despite the encounter deaths of the Disha case accused. Since January 1, in a span of 40 days, there were 1,950 crimes against women, including attempts to rape, acid attacks, stalking, etc, registered by the National Commission for Women. In 2019, 19,730 crimes against women were recorded by the commission. With women’s increasing role in society, developers have been offering apps with features to help them in emergencies.

B SAFE

| Allows emergency contacts to follow you through a live GPS trail; set a timed alarm that goes off if you haven’t checked in; the app makes your phone ring with a fake call; the alert notifies emergency contacts with location, video; and also sounds a siren.

VITH U

| It is activated using the phone’s power button, and sends the message: “I am in danger, need help. Please follow my location” to emergency contacts every two minutes with an updated location.

EMERGENCY SOS SAFETY ALERT APP

| Sends an SMS alert with GPS location with a long press of a pre-set button to preset emergency contacts at regular intervals. This app makes sure that the phone screen goes dim to draw less attention towards the mobile.

RAKSHA

| Can be used by multiple persons; tracks the user and checks the location. GPS is used to track the location and if someone clicks the ‘Are you in trouble?’ button, it sends messages on registered numbers with the current location of the app user.

I GO SAFELY

| Sends an alert to registered contacts on shaking it vigorously or after unplugging the earphones. Emails and text messages are sent along with the GPS location. Updates go every minute till the app is disarmed. This app also sends an audio recording of 30 seconds.

BEING SAFE

| Sends location alerts to contacts, but the difference is that one can add as many contacts as required without limit, (other apps have a limit of five to six contacts). Besides the contacts, the app users in that particular area also get a notification about someone else being in possible trouble.

NIRBHAYA BE FEARLESS

| Sends an alert to pre-added contacts with the user’s location. One can set to send an alert through a phone call, or a Facebook post or a message by simply shaking the phone.

HAWK EYE

| This app has an option of an SOS button, through which the police can be informed in case of emergencies and they would reach the location. The alert message would also go to the preset five contacts as well.

WOMEN SAFETY SECURED

| Recognises shouting and crying as distress signals and transmits text messages to emergency contacts with the phone’s location.

SAFETIPIN

| Along with the GPS location, shows directions to safe locations and pins showing safe and unsafe areas on the map along with the feature of SOS to send an emergency alert to preset contacts.