Kidnapping: By pressing a button in the cell phone during a risk situation an alert message is sent to any police station within a one kilometer radius and to friends and family that had previously been selected as security contacts.
The activated alert will inform the user’s contact network the exact geographical point where the individual is, at the same time, the microphone and video camera will be activated, so everything that occurs will be registered and automatically uploaded to an internet cloud.
This is possible thanks to a software developed in Aguascalientes (Central Mexico) by the Mexican enterprise Sec-App Technologies, which plans to offer this service to five million cellphone users.
This app also prevents felonies by sending messages to the user when he or she is about to arrive to a conflictive or dangerous corner, an alternate route with verified security is suggested. This way, the cellphone is transformed in a tool to inform and activate security protocols.
In the last five years, Mexico has turned in one of places worldwide with the greatest record of kidnaps, theft, phone extortions and homicides. Parting from this problematic, Sec- App developed a free app that can be downloaded in almost 80 million of smartphones throughout the country.
The success of the product has allowed the company to grow from two to 25 employees, between engineers, mathematicians, economists and designers. A version for iPhone is available, and next to be launched are versions for Android and Windows Mobile. Besides, an English version is being prepared to export to the US and Canada.
The product of this effort, generated in Aguascalientes, has received support form the Foundation Mexico-United States for Science (FUMEC) to use, with privilege, the internet cloud as well as training and incubation programs for technological enterprises.
Sec-App Technologies was founded less than five years ago and today is the only one in Mexico that offers an app that prevents and helps to react to a crime. In an interview to the general Director and co-founder of the company, Francisco Flores, he explained that the developed app has three main functions:
The first one allows family and friends of the user to know its location and routes thanks to the use of satellite geolocators. Besides, it counts with a panic button than can be activated in case of a threat and immediately sends messages to the chosen contacts; at the same time it activates the camera and microphone of the cellphone to register what’s going on in real time as it uploads this data to the cloud so it can be consulted by other users. Finally, it elaborates a map of the secure and insecure zones for the users based on previous route. Meaning, with daily reports it nurtures a mathematical algorithm than can calculate whether a safe or insecure zone is being entered and alerts the user so he or she can decide if the chosen route should be changed.
“At this time we are improving and expanding the app. One of the novelties we want to include is that, when the alert is activated with the panic button, other app users within a kilometer radius also receive the signal so they know that a dangerous event is taking place and can even be eye witnesses of the act. This other tools have been incorporated by petition or suggestion of the users and increase the value of the app” Francisco Flores said.
Other two innovations being prepared by the company are the elaboration and sale of panic buttons for cars and geolocation bracelets for underage users who still don’t have access to their own cellphones.
Edited article via Investigacion Y Desarrollo