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

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.

2 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. 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."

  2. 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.