The 16th December incident that happened in New Delhi has exposed the inability of the administration in providing adequate security to women. Learning a lesson from this episode, the police now aim to increase their connectivity with women in trouble. On these lines, two techies from Kerala have developed a mobile application called Sentinel that helps a woman in trouble, contact the police immediately.
The promotional video for this app shows a man stalking a woman, with criminal motives. The woman takes out her mobile phone and presses a button. In a few minutes a police van reaches the spot to help her out. Such apps as, Sentinel and Fightback rely on crowdsourcing and location identification based on GPS co-ordinates of the victim, to direct the police to the spot of distress. The press-a-button approach allows the victim to contact police quickly for she may not have the time to call the control room.
Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh is very optimistic regarding such apps. He believes that the wide usage of such apps would not only ensure the safety of women, but also help the police to detect and report crimes accurately. Large corporate firms as Mahindra corps are interested in marketing such apps.The Mumbai police itself developed an application as Ice in this respect.