A new app using AI to send out an alert when the user is attacked has launched today, with a promise to make women out walking and running alone feel safer.
Epowar, which has gone live on the UK App Store today, monitors smart watch data to sense if the wearer’s heart rate and body motion indicate distress.
If the AI detects that the user is being attacked, the app sends an alert to the wearer’s emergency contacts. It automatically starts recording data including GPS location and sounds.
Unlike conventional personal security alarms, the user does not need to do anything to activate the alert. The app’s developers say this makes it more useful during an attack.
“The key is that it all happens automatically — an assailant would have little or no time to prevent this, which is not always possible with conventional panic buttons, rape alarms or your mobile phone,” Epowar co-founder E-J Roodt said on Thursday.
Epowar’s founders, who began working on the project with students at the University of Bath, say the app also addresses privacy issues by tracking the user only if the alert is activated.
The basic version of Epowar is free, but the automatic storage of evidence is available with only the £2.49 monthly subscription.
Having launched on the App Store, it will roll out to other devices, such as Fitbit, Android and Garmin, later this year.
Can safety apps make women safer?
The issue of women’s safety in London has been put repeatedly under the spotlight in recent years. This is due to high-profile murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, as well as several assaults.
Some have turned to tech in an attempt to feel safer. In the weeks following Everard’s murder, safety app WalkSafe was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, jumping to the top of both the Apple and Android charts.
But safety apps have also faced criticism from campaign groups that say they do not address the root causes of violence against women.
“Women and girls have always had to carry out invisible safety work — carrying our keys in our hand, sharing our location with friends, choosing the best lit route home — and the creation of these apps are yet another way women are looking to protect themselves and each other,” Deniz UÄur, deputy director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, told the Evening Standard.
“But the burden should not lie with women to keep ourselves safe or ‘not get attacked’. Nothing women can do will deter a perpetrator intent on causing harm, as we have seen time and again.”
Epowar’s founders have acknowledged that technology alone “cannot make women safer on our streets” but say that the app can “play its part”.
Molly Slater-Davison, founder of all-women running and wellness group These Girls Run, agrees that apps and location sharing can help women “take that first step out the door” and try running.
“However, the sad fact is, we won't truly feel safe until we have reassurance and confidence that the problem against violence of women is being tackled at source, and we'll be taken seriously when we report it,” she told the Evening Standard.
“This is a long term game. In the meantime, anything that supports women runners is a win with our community, as long as it helps us to have a conversation on how we fix the issue long term.”
