In a bid to protect women from violence, India's Telecommunications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced on Twitter Tuesday that, as of next year, new mobile phones will be equipped with a panic button.
From 2017, mobile phones sold in India will contain a built-in panic button that, when pressed, alerts the police and designated contacts. Further to this addition, from 2018, new phones will contain a GPS system that "can be used to pinpoint location in the event of harassment or distress," the minister added in another tweet.
On feature phones, the panic button will be activated by pushing the 5 or 9 keys, or by pressing the power button three times on a smartphone.
India's Press Information Bureau explained in a statement that "a physical panic button is much superior to having an App on the mobile phone. It was argued that a women in distress does not have more than a second or two to send out a distress message as a perpetrator will often reach out to her mobile phone in the event of a physical/sexual assault."
