What a great use of technology to help us look out for one another!

Originally shared by Kelly Kolton

What a great use of technology to help us look out for one another! Kitestring is an online service that alerts your emergency contacts if you don't respond to its check-ups via text message or website. It's free, doesn't use GPS and it relies on your unresponsiveness to alert your emergency contacts. (Could be good to use for late-night #ingress  sessions!)
#safety   #apps   #kitestring  
http://www.elle.com/news/lifestyle/kitestring-founder-stephan-boyer

Comments

  1. Amory Green (RaincityRoller)April 25, 2014 at 6:54 AM

    I work in security. Something ive brought up locally and noticed world wide is that we are constantly in communication with each other, in obscure places at all times of day and night, and moving from location to location sometimes repeatedly stopping at the same places.

    We are eyes, ears, hands, and legs.

    This means we also in a sense first responders, security guards, and walking road maps.

    At this point I must emphasize if you ever feel you are in danger and have any doubt of your ability to be safe, get out of there!

    Also you are not a police officer, not even security officers are. Do NOT detain anyone unless trained to do so, or necessity overwhelms the situation.

    But if you see something or hear something dont ever, ever, be afraid to say something.

    Tell people what your plan is (within OpSec) and maybe bring a friend. More to be posted on my page soon. Thank you for bringing this to light Joe Philley and Kelly Kolton.

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  2. Rowan “Lovely” BadgerApril 25, 2014 at 10:04 AM

    I both like and don't like this app.  I like it because it gets you thinking about the fact that you are in a dangerous neighborhood, and may prompt you to be more alert.  I like it because instead of a day before someone notices you've gone missing, it's an hour.  That, combined with a GPS-enabled tracker on your phone, can send someone to your location quickly and get you help fast.  I'd probably use it for hiking alone, with details on what trail I was taking and what time I started, so that if I fell or became injured someone would know where to start looking.

    I don't like it because it promotes the idea that it is 'keeping you safe'.  It's not, regrettably, keeping anyone safe.  It's letting people know when you have failed to check in.  (I have used a similar system in online dating, having a 'check-in friend' who knew the location of the meet and all the information I had on someone, and had instructions on what to do if she hadn't received a text from me by a certain time)  If your friends don't know what to do when you don't check in, or if police don't take their reports seriously, or if you've forgotten to check in the last four times and your friends have gotten the call to come check on you needlessly, then it doesn't do much.

    I also agree with Amory about "If you see something odd, speak up."  I've been doing various forms of safety and intervention over the last 15+ years, and one of the most helpful phrases out there is "Hey, everything OK over here?"  It's non-aggressive, non-threatening, but it lets everyone involved know that someone is paying attention to what's happening, and gives a potential victim a chance to say "You know, you mind if I walk with you?  I was just leaving."

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