Mobile phones in India must include a panic-button by January next year and satellite-based location technology from 2018, as officials try to make the nation safer for women.
The emergency feature would be activated by pressing a designated key on a smartphone or holding down the numbers “5” or “9” on a basic device, according to a statement from the Indian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in New Delhi late on Monday.
All manufacturers, including companies such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, would need to comply.
India is among the fastest-growing smartphone markets and has about 1 billion mobile-phone users. That has spurred demand for technology-based security assistance in a nation with an average of four rapes per hour and one of the world’s lowest police-to-citizen ratios.
“A panic button should be relatively easy to implement,” said Neil Shah, research director for devices and ecosystems at Counterpoint Technology Market Research in Mumbai.
Adding satellite-based global positioning to cheaper handsets could be harder, but about 90 percent of the devices shipped by 2018 would probably be smartphones, he said.
When pressed, the panic feature would dial emergency services, though the statement does not specify which number. There are already a number of apps available in India that do something similar.
India currently has no centralized 911-type service for emergency calls, although a single, nationwide emergency response number — 112 — is due to be introduced in the next few months.
Reports of attacks on women in India have reverberated around the world, especially a fatal gang rape of a medical student in New Delhi in 2012, increasing pressure on officials to make the country a safer place.
Indian Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi proposed panic buttons last year.
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