Only for India, Uber adds SOS button to directly alert police: Here's how it works

Continuing with its efforts to enhance safety features on its apps, taxi haling service company Uber has added an SOS button that will connect passengers with the police and also the company’s own backend system in real time in case of emergencies. [caption id=“attachment_2192213” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] The company has been under pressure to take steps to ensure safety of its customers after one of its riders was raped by an Uber cab driver in Delhi last year. “Our teams have worked tirelessly in recent months to make sure that not only are you able to connect with law enforcement at the push of a button, but that the authorities have critical real-time information they need to take action,” the company said in a blog post yesterday. Once the passenger pushes the button, it will send an alert with the details of the relevant trip such as GPS location, rider information, driver’s name, licence number and vehicle type. This will be projected on a dedicated screen in the local police control room. The company has successfully tested beta-version in Kolkata and is in discussions with authorities in cities across the country to deploy this solution in the coming weeks, the blog post said. According to a report in The Hindustan Times citing Deval Delivala, Uber’s India Safety Lead, the company has paid for the equipment it has given to the control rooms. A report in Time magazine said the feature is only for India as of now. The SOS button is an enhancement of the feature it had introduced earlier, which allowed riders to send trip details to up to five pre-selected contacts. Prior to that, the companny had also started more rigorous screening of its drivers by doing extensive background checks.