Challenge
Protecting victims of domestic violence with mobile tech
Because domestic violence is often hard to detect, it often goes unnoticed until healthcare professionals are able to covertly intervene. According to the CDC, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience physical violence by their intimate partner at some point during their lifetimes. About 1 in 3 women and nearly 1 in 6 men experience some form of sexual violence during their lifetimes. Intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking are high, with intimate partner violence occurring in over 10 million people each year. If there were a safe and secure way to report abuse and get help via a mobile device, violence could be stopped long before they reach a health care professional.
An adapted mobile phone, TecSOS is designed specifically to enable victims of domestic violence to contact emergency services at the press of a button. It has 'covert' features which allow the user to trigger the button in their pocket, which will then make a call to the police - if this call is silent, the system recognizes this is from a TecSOS phone, and identifies the location of the call.