With the changing times, the role of women has improvised and now along with acting as a perfect home-maker, she is very active in her professional life too. With the increasing participation of women, the topic of women safety cannot be ignored. For the same reason, lot of Android Smart phones are pre-installed with women safety android apps. These apps have become yet another way of protecting them from protecting them if they land up in any unpleasant situation. After all, women safety is not just an issue today, it is a major rising concern, so we bring to you a detailed list of 6 apps, which aim to offer women-safety anytime and at any place.
1. VithU App
This App is an initiative by Channel V and Gumrah to offer you help if you are in some emergency situation. This app asks you to feed the contact numbers of your guardians or those people whom you want to contact in any unpleasant situation. Just click the power button of your smartphone twice and this app will start sending your location along with an alert message to your pre-provisioned contact every 2 minutes and the receiver will timely get updates about the change in location.
The alert message says, “I am in danger. I need help. Please follow my location.” Along with this, the app also gives you update about the Crime Scenes in India and an exclusive Tip Feed option which informs you about different safety tips in an emergency situation. You can download this app from Google Play Store, iTunes and Windows Play Store. This app is available for free.
2. Nirbhaya App
This is another safety app that has been developed by a Pune based company, SmartCloud tech, and is must for women who are going out alone. The app is useful when you want to contact your known in case of any emergency. This app allows you to send a pre-defined SMS alongside your current location to the selected numbers. All you have to do is press the Nirbhaya short cut icon to get help in distress. Further, if your phone is locked, then you simply need to shake your phone and the SMS will automatically be sent to a group of contacts as an SOS key. Not only this, Nirbhaya also alerts you if the area you are in is safe or unsafe so that you are vigilant and alert all the time.
So this app is very useful for communication in emergency situations like attempted molestation, accidents or any family emergency and it can be downloaded easily from Google Play Store.
3. Sentinel Personal Security SOS
This app again is very useful if you travel alone a lot. In emergency situation, this app performs multiple tasks ? calls friends, family or employer for immediate action, SMS with location link and live location feed, email with location tracking, map pin with exact location and live tracking information through website. Best thing about this app is that it is quite fast and accurate and understands the meaning of SOS in a real sense.
To send alert to your known when in distress you do not need to trigger the alert button manually as switching off the phone forcefully or prolonged single loss leads this app to send the alert message to the pre-defined numbers. This app is also easily available on Google Play Store and has reached nearly 50,000 downloads since its launch. This women safety app by Sentinel is the winner of NASSCOM APPFAME 2013 Awards.
4. iFollow
iFollow is yet another safety app which has won the Nasscom AppFame AWARD for ladies safety. This application works in the background so as to reduce the power consumption and is once again made for people in some sort of dangerous situations. In the initial setup, this app asks you to register up to 3 contacts with whom you will like to communicate in any emergency situation. After activation, you just need to shake the mobile thrice within 5 seconds in case of emergency and rest the iFollow app will do.
As soon as you activate this signal, it gives a call to the first number and somehow if there is no response from the same, the app generates an SMS along with your geo-location and sends it to all the three contacts you have registered as emergency ones. After the first message, with each ten meters change in location, this app sends SOS with new location details.
5. Go Suraksheit
This is another useful security app that allows you to seek help from the contacts you trust the most and that too from anywhere. By clicking the help button, four actions take place automatically which basically act as your personal e-weapons against any emergency. First, an SMS, with your current location and a link with the exact location on the map, is sent to the list of pre-provisioned numbers (you can store up to 10 contacts maximum). Second, this app updates your Facebook status with the same content as that of the SMS. Third, this app sends a call to the pre-provisioned emergency number and lastly, it triggers a loud alarm to seek help from the surroundings as well.
This app can also get activated by pressing your power button more than 4 times in a row. Go Suraksheit is easily available on Google Play Store and on Windows Store as well.
6. Help Alert
This application is developed by India’s Leading Website and Android Application Developer, Pioneer WebSystem Pvt. Ltd, Ahmedabad, and is a non-profit venture to promote social benefits. Like the previous apps, Help Alert also aims to help a woman in distress or emergency. It continuously sends latitudinal and longitudinal locations of the person along with his/her voice recordings to the near and dear ones. In addition, this app also updates your Facebook status with a warning that you need help alongside updating your location details. Your safety is merely a single click away. The messages about your current location will keep on sending to the pre-defined numbers, until you enter the secret Code to stop the warning signals. To avoid any confusion, the Secret Code should be easily recognizable.
Other Apps
If you are using Android OS, then you can very easily avail these apps, as Android is an open source project and almost all the apps are free here. Some of the above apps are also available on Windows Phone but they can be chargeable depending on the developers. Like Nirbhaya costs Rs. 55 on Windows Phone whereas Go Suraksheit app on Windows Store is completely free of cost. The safety apps available on iOS like Circle of 6, Watch over Me and Cab4me are not meant for Indians, as the emergency number pre-stored on these apps is 911, so they need to be customized before their usage in India.
Conclusion
Nevertheless, the six apps mentioned above are just one way offered by technology to minimize the chances of our being a victim of some violent crime or unexpected emergency.
Being totally oriented to Indian scenario, these apps bring resources to our fingertips so that we are capable of taking some immediate actions.
We just can’t sit back at home with the fear of any unwanted situation, so these apps are an effort to provide an assurance that we are not alone. So just be alert, be safe!
