Digital innovation – Panic Button
Panic Button – an app that could prevent people from
being abducted and becoming a victim of torture or cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment – was
born out of our 2012 challenge to designers and activists
to fight human rights violations in innovative ways. This
modern SOS signal for individuals at risk is an Android
app that sends distress SMS messages to contacts preprogrammed
into a user’s mobile phone. If the phone’s
Global Positioning System (GPS) is activated, text messages
will include the phone’s location on a map, updated
regularly