Microsoft has launched a safety app for women in India, called Guardian, for Windows Phones.
In December 2012, a group of six men gangraped a girl in India's capital city, New Delhi, which later led to the death of the victim. The event outraged the general public that urged the Indian government to work towards implementing stricter laws against rapists. The government, however, has been slow to act, and to this date, women's safety is one of the biggest issues in India, an issue that Microsoft has attempted to address.
The software giant indicated its concerns over the growth in crimes against women in India by launching the Guardian app.
Raj Biyani, Microsoft's IT India Managing Director, said that the Guardian app enables users to switch on a "track me" feature that will let friends and family track them in real time using Microsoft Windows Azure cloud services and Bing Map. Biyani added that the handset with Guardian installed in it can be traced even if it is broken. Moreover, the app is also capable of one touch video recording, which may be used later as evidence.
Guardian app users can also alert security agencies, police and hospitals in an emergency via an "SOS" alert button. Biyani says that the Guardian app was developed over a period of six months by a group of passionate Microsoft employees based in India.
"Our employees wanted to do something to enable people to feel safer in our cities. So they used their spare time to develop Guardian. It is a robust personal security app with more safety features and capabilities than any other comparable app available to Indian smartphone users today," said Biyani.
Users will have to put the names and contact details of friends, family, security groups and emergency services for the Guardian app to work effectively.
"The phone then sends a distress SMS to all buddy mobiles, notifying them of the emergency along with location details. At the same time the SOS button also sends emails to buddy email IDs and posts to private Facebook groups, if registered," added Biyani.
Users can check out the full features of Guardian by visiting the official app webpage.
