Use your phone to keep yourself safe while you're out and about or at home, with personal safety apps that keep you connected in case of emergency.
Situations that pose personal safety risks are often stressful, such as encountering a shady character in a dark alleyway at night with no one to help in sight. There are apps available to improve your personal safety every day.
Today, you can be proactive with a new breed of personal safety apps designed explicitly to help in those moments that you feel most helpless.
1. bSafe
bSafe is one of the most comprehensive personal safety app. bSafe is best for lone walks or social events. The app bSafe features a live “follow me” map feature as well as voice activation tools, automatic recordings, and even live streaming in addition to its SOS button that will alert contacts when you feel threatened.
bSafe can create fake calls that provide an excuse to get up from the table and leave an uncomfortable situation. Like most of these personal safety apps, bSafe can only work if you’ve enabled your location services and designated invitations to your friends who have agreed to track your movements.
Devices: iOS and Android
2. Life360
Personal safety is just one of the many uses for the very popular Life360 app. Described as a GPS phone locator and tracker, Life 360 was built to simplify staying connected with your close family members as well as friends.
The app allows you to create your own private ‘circles’ where you add trusted friends or family into specific groups. Provided your phone’s location services are turned on, the app lets everyone view each other’s real-time locations on a map. It also sends alerts to group members when anyone arrives or leaves destinations.
Whether at home, work, school or any other location it’s the ideal way to keep everyone aware of your whereabouts.
Devices: iOS and Android
3. Kitestring
Kitestring is a simple, free and overprotective web app. First, you enter a list of emergency contact numbers to your account. Whenever you want the app to look out for you, you let it know that you're going on a trip and when you plan to return.
If you don’t want to download an actual app, Kitestring works by sending you a simple text message whenever you’re on a date, a walk, or any sort of meeting. If you don’t respond, it will automatically send your emergency contacts a personalized alert. You don’t even need a smartphone to sign up.
Devices: Web
4. WalkSafe
WalkSafe is the only safety app to use official police crimes statistics with a unique live map so users can see the most recent crimes wherever they are, empowering them to avoid crime hotspots if they can.
WalkSafe allows you to avoid hotspots on your walk home, to ensure a little more peace of mind. If you come close to a location where a crime has been reported, the app will alert you, so you can avoid that area.
Devices: iOS and Android
5. First Aid: American Red Cross
First Aid app features include simple step-by-step instructions for everyday first aid scenarios. Whether you have a pre-existing health condition or are venturing out on a hike, you could hardly do worse than the American Red Cross for resources and assistance. The First Aid app offers a number of features designed to help you in the event of a medical emergency: you can contact EMS directly through the app, as well as watch tons of video tutorials, step-by-step first-aid tips, and access pre-loaded safety information that works even when you don’t have WiFi.
Devices: iOS and Android
6. Silent Beacon
With Silent Beacon, you can personalize emergency contacts into your phone and alert them with the simple tap of your screen. Your contacts can be friends, family members, or even the police, and you can easily change them based on where you are or what type of situation you expect to be in. This simple, effective app shares a distress message as well as your GPS location so that your contacts can respond quickly to the emergency.
7. React Mobile
However much we love our smartphones, there are times we’ll be without them, and it’s important that in times of emergency there is a way to call for help beyond our trusty phones. The app React Mobile has a smart key-ring device that pairs with an app on your phone via Bluetooth, so you can get help faster if your phone’s locked or out of reach when you need help. In an emergency you can hit the button on the device which immediately alerts your emergency contacts.
8. Hollaback!
According to Hollaback!, an estimated 80-90% of women have been harassed in public. Hollaback allows you to capture and upload a photo of your potential harasser "caught in the act" and submit the story to be recorded and mapped on ihollaback.org. The photo then gets shared publicly on a street harassment prevention website.
9. Red Panic Button
Red Panic Button is a one-click emergency app. Personal safety doesn’t only address protection from harassment or attackers. Recently the need for emergency services in times of hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters is only too evident.
If you want your call for help to reach further than your immediate emergency contacts, the app Red Panic Button allows you to send emergency text messages but also connects to your social media channels, including Twitter, Facebook and Email.
Devices: iOS and Android
10. SafeTrek
SafeTrek is another straightforward app that’s easy to use in the spur of the moment. There’s one feature—you hit the button in the middle of the screen at any time you’re feeling unsafe. Once you’re safe again you hit a 4-digit pin number, and if you don’t enter this number the app will automatically contact the local police.
When you practice positive personal safety habits, you'll benefit from reduced stress.
