Kanpur police launch SOS mobile app for women’s safety

The Kanpur police have launched a new mobile app going by the name SOS for the protection of women and girls in one of India’s most populated cities. The application is designed to help users send an alert to family members as well as the police control room in case they’re faced with any danger.

Calling an Android app SOS is a very good way of ensuring that people struggle to find it in Google Play Store since there are half a dozen or more similar tools in the virtual marketplace which are named the same. But rest assured, you will eventually stumble upon it since the Kanpur police say they’ve released the safety application.

A post on Press Trust of India reports Kanpur SSP, K S Emanuel, as saying that the reason the SOS app exists is to cut down on incidents of crime against women and eve teasing. The subject of security of the female population in India rose to prominence and has been staying in the news following the brutal molestation and eventual death of a 23-year old physiotherapy intern in a Delhi bus in 2012.

A company called Extentia has also created an SOS application for Android which won the 2014 South West India Manthan award for e-Women & Empowerment this week. In early March, the BJP launched a Raksha app for women’s safety which has a one-press alert button for notifying others when stuck in distressing situations. And even before that, a Microsoft Guardian tool for Windows Phone devices was released for the same purpose.

The SOS mobile app unveiled by the Kanpur police may only be available for Android at present. But there’s a possibility of it being rolled out for iOS too in the future.