To help you out in a distress situation, a quick and simple way to send out a signal to your family member or the police authorities from the mobile phone in hand. The government has now mandated all mobile phones launching in India from 2017 onwards to have a panic button and GPS.
With women and children safety in mind, the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) has issued a rule under section 10 of the Indian Wireless Telegraph Act 1933, that mandates panic button on all mobile phones sold in India.
Under the new rule, every mobile phone that been sold in India from 1st January 2017 must have a panic button configured. Feature phones to have the panic button configured to the numeric key 5 or 9 and smartphones (including Android, iOS, Windows Phone) to have the panic button configured to three times short pressing of the on-off button.
In addition, all mobile phones sold in India from 1st January 2018 will require having the facility of identifying the user’s location through satellite-based GPS.
The initiative was started by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in order to provide safety to women in a distress situation.
“India will be one of the first countries to have mandated this for making women feel safe. A panic button will also act as a deterrent to perpetrators,” said Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi.”
The government will also be working with mobile vendors to offer similar solutions to all existing mobile phones in the form of a software update by which same panic buttons could be configured to send out emergency calls to the concerned telephone numbers.