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India Makes It Compulsory For Phones To Have a 'Panic Button' (cio.com)

Posted by msmash on from the women-safety dept.

Reader itwbennett writes: Starting in January 2017, all feature phones sold in India will need to have a panic button that will alert "police, designated friends and relatives, for immediate response in case of distress or security related issues," said Minister of Communications, Ravi Shankar Prasad, on Twitter late Tuesday. The measure is one of many responses by the Indian government to the growing women safety issues in the country. Furthermore, starting in January 2018, mobile phones will also be required to have GPS systems to help pinpoint the location of the affected person in the event of harassment or distress, said Prasad.Mashable has more details.

3 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Hardware or software? by afidel · · Score: 1, Informative

    If they are allowed to use software it's no different from the US requirements which require access to 911 without an unlock code and the E911 requirement (which is such incredible BS, even last year when calling 911 from my phone the operator still asked me my location and city, I was calling in to report black ice on a state route in a city I'm not familiar with, I wasn't sure exactly which jurisdiction I was in, the freaking phone is REQUIRED to give them lat and longitude, it should have come up on their screen before they even picked up my call ffs)

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    1. Re:Hardware or software? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You don't understand E911 - the PSAP operator will see the phase one information tower - location and sector - when you call. The phone originated GPS location may not even be available until 30 seconds after you START the call (or never depending on a number of factors) To call it BS is ignorant and unhelpful.

  2. Re:False alarms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    ... From the article.

    "Under the new rules that come into effect in January 2017, all feature phones will need to have a panic button configured to the numeric key 5 or 9 and all smartphones will have the panic button linked to three short presses of the on-off button, according to the country's Department of Communications."