Women’s safety on mind, govt mulls panic button in cell phones

For women’s safety, the government is considering the introduction of a panic button in cell phones and has asked all mobile phone manufacturers to work out the feasibility of such a feature, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said on Friday.

“When we asked for suggestions about what precautions can girls take to keep themselves safe and escape emergency situations, we were flooded with ideas, including wearing specialised necklaces, bracelets and rings which had certain SOS message sending features. Why should we do that? Are women prisoners so they always have to move with these devices? How can we ensure availability, affordability and usage of these devices among rural women,” the minister <g data-gr-id="30">said,</g> while addressing a ‘Student Parliament’ on issues faced by girl students.

She said considering the limitations of these devices, the government has come up with an idea of having <g data-gr-id="28">in-built</g> panic button in all cell phones. “The phones will have a panic button, which will be GPS connected. We are in conversation with phone manufacturers and the proposal is likely to be executed in few months,” she said.

Emergency response apps can take too long to access in a rush and configuring one of the existing buttons on a phone for the task would be much simpler and quicker, she said.

Talking about the various schemes rolled out by the NDA government, the Union minister  said that the focus is on initiatives such as ‘beti <g data-gr-id="23">bachao</g>’, ‘beti <g data-gr-id="25">padhao</g>’ and reservation for women posts in police stations to ensure an effective interface between the complainants and the police.