UK Eyes ‘Walk Me Home’ Phone-Tracker To Protect Women

Top official in the British government has shown significant support for the proposal for a new tracking service that can help protect girls and women and make them feel safer. This new tracking service is a proposal by a phone company innovated to address violence issues that may arise when girls and women walk alone. The idea for the new tracking service was pitched to the Home Secretary amid current outrage over the recent killing of two young women in London.

ABC News recalls recent killings in which women were victims. In March, Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, was abducted, raped, and killed by a serving police officer who was convicted of murder and other charges this month and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Also the story of Primary school teacher Sabina Nessa, 28, who was killed six months later as she walked through a park in south London on her way to meet a friend.

The tracking service called “walk me home” was proposed in a letter by Philip Jansen, the Chief Executive Officer of Britain’s biggest phone company to Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel. He explains that the service is activated an app on a woman’s phone, the service would track her journey and send an alert to her emergency contacts if she didn’t reach her destination on time. Confirmations were sent by the U.K. Home Office that Home Secretary – Priti Patel had received the letter and promised a response in “due course.” Comments by Patel in the Daily Mail were perceived as supportive. According to Daily Mail Patel said “This new phone line is exactly the kind of innovative scheme which would be good to get going as soon as we can” She added, “I’m now looking at it with my team and liaising with BT.”

The tracking service would go a long way in complement the existing nationwide emergency number Britain has put in place. Jansen explains that BT has run Britain’s 999 emergency number for 84 years and is currently upgrading the system. With the British government eyes on the “walk me home” service, Daily Mail reports that the service could be up and running by Christmas.

Jansen states in his letter “Male violence is causing so many people, especially women, to live in fear, and their parents, partners, and friends worry too, more now than ever.” He said. “I am not a politician, I can’t change society, but if I can use innovative technology to improve personal safety, then I am determined to do so.”