Greater Noida: Police to bring out two apps for SOS calls, crime updates

The Gautam Budh Nagar Police will introduce one app for those in distress and another for police updates

With the introduction of two apps — one for those in distress and the other for police updates — the district police is all set to take the digital route to ensure a transparent and citizen-friendly approach.

With the SOS app, a person in need of help can share his/her location coordinates and pictures with the police control room. (AFP/Representative Photo)

The decision to introduce these apps was taken after a recent high-level meeting of Uttar Pradesh director general of police Sulkhan Singh and other senior police officers of the Meerut range. Singh had also asked police to be transparent in their working and empathetic in their work style.

The SOS app will help residents in distress, police said. A person in need of help can share his/her location coordinates and pictures with the police control room via the app.

“The app turns into an SOS device within 10 seconds. A person just has to open the app to make it function. It will take five pictures from the phone’s front camera, start an audio and video recording and send the location coordinates to police. The details will also be sent to the Lucknow control room,” said Suniti, superintendent of police (rural).

Another app which the police are planning to introduce will be one that keeps a track of crime incidents in an area. The regular updates will help police stations keep a watch over the area under their jurisdiction.

“This app will help the station house officers to keep a track of events (crime incidents) that have occurred in their area during a particular day. This information will also be shared with senior officers. That way, it becomes easier for the police to keep a track of crime and also introduce transparency in their functioning as there will be a digital record of all happenings and the seniors can keep a track of it,” said Suniti.

The police will be undergoing training to effectively manage the two apps.

“We are trying to ensure that the helpline 100 is able to reach everyone in distress and , to that end, the UP Police has introduced black vans called police response vehicles. We hope that the response time to calls on 100 will improve after the introduction of this app,” Suniti said.