Content provided by British Council
[1] A Hong Kong police mobile app that has helped in the rescue of 272 people will soon be upgraded to include live location sharing for groups. The number of emergency contacts will also be increased to enhance users’ safety.
[2] Senior Superintendent Swalikh Mohammed of the digital policing services bureau said the force would roll out an upgrade for its “HKSOS” app this month. The app was introduced in January 2024. It has been downloaded 150,000 times as of November 9. The current version of the app allows users to alert police if they encounter danger during outdoor activities such as hiking, paragliding and canoeing.
[3] A new tracking function of the app’s “Signal Radar” technology will allow rescue personnel to accurately detect the location of a person in distress. The technology will work even if the device has no signal. Rescuers can carry the radar to detect a distressed individual’s location on a helicopter or fly a drone equipped with it during searches.
[4] In the new version, users can form a group with up to nine others and monitor one another’s locations throughout their journey. Mohammed noted that this would be helpful for school trips, scouts or orienteering activities and other group events. “In the past, some schools would write to the police to say they were bringing 10 students up a hiking route on a designated date, notifying us just in case,” he said. “‘HKSOS’ can fulfil this role now. That is why we established a ‘team’ function.”
[5] Another functional upgrade is a feature that allows users to add five emergency contacts, up from three in the current version. Contacts will be able to view the user’s live location and alert police if they suspect the person is in trouble or needs to be rescued. Users can also choose to share their live location with their emergency contacts for 15 minutes, one hour, eight hours or a custom time frame. Those contacts can view the expected journey duration entered in the app. They can also view the time elapsed since the journey began and send in-app notifications to the user to check on their safety.
[6] When the two functional upgrades are launched, the “HKSOS” app will also become available for download on Huawei phones. The app is currently only available on Android and Apple devices. Since its launch, “HKSOS” has been used to trigger 113 rescues for 272 people. All the rescues were completed within three hours, with an average time of around two hours.
Source: South China Morning Post, November 9
