So I keep tech safety tools on me—some on my iPhone, others in my bag.
Apps and devices can provide a safety net, says Jake Newton, chief operations officer for the Center for Personal Protection and Safety, a security training and consulting company.
Your smartphone and many of your favorite apps already have safety options, but you need to turn them on.
This coming week, Uber will let U.S. riders set some safety tools to start automatically—for all rides, night rides, weekend trips, or rides originating near a bar or restaurant.
“Without that gut instinct of caring about your personal safety, all of the technology in the world is not going to help you."
I knew something was wrong when I got to San Francisco’s Powell Street BART train station. Police tape and uniformed officers blocked my normal exit. A 17-year-old had been shot and killed there a half-hour earlier.
It was 10 p.m. on a Thursday in late March. I’d felt antsy before even arriving at the station. I don’t like walking around the city’s empty downtown after dark.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual report from October showed violent crime in 2022 fell to its prepandemic level in the U.S., but people still feel wary. According to Gallup, 40% of Americans say they’re afraid to walk alone at night near home. That’s a three-decade high. As a woman in a big city, I have to plan ahead.
So I keep tech safety tools on me—some on my iPhone, others in my bag.
Apps and devices can provide a safety net, says Jake Newton, chief operations officer for the Center for Personal Protection and Safety, a security training and consulting company. “But also recognize that if something does occur," he adds, “you still have to decide what you’re going to do."
Your smartphone and many of your favorite apps already have safety options, but you need to turn them on. Consider these tools as ways to augment your security, not substitutes for situational awareness and smart decision-making.
Checking in
Ever since I got my first cellphone in 2000, I’ve always sent “I’m home safe" texts to friends. Apple’s Check In feature, which launched in September with iOS 17, largely automates the process. Activate it to notify a chosen contact when you’ve reached your destination—or if you’ve been dark too long.
You can only use it with one contact at a time, and not in group chats. You both need iPhones running iOS 17. To start, tap the + in a message. Select More, choose Check In and then tap Edit in the yellow box to set the destination or a timer (say, the expected duration of a blind date). Tap the send arrow to notify your friend.
Your designee won’t see your location or route unless you run into issues. If you don’t make progress for over 15 minutes, or if the timer has ended, your iPhone will ping you to see if you’re OK. You can extend the time or end the Check In. If you don’t respond within 15 minutes—or you make an Emergency SOS call—the system notifies your contact and shares your location, device battery level and network connection.
I used it to track a route to dinner and that nighttime return trip home. When I didn’t respond to the Check In, the service sent a critical alert to my friend and prompted her to view my location.
Location tracking
My fiancé and I, like many couples, share our iPhone locations with each other through Apple’s Find My network. Many teens also want their parents to constantly track their phones.
To share your location with friends, open the Find My on your iPhone and go to the People tab at the bottom left. Tap the + then Share My Location. Select a person from your contacts, hit Send and choose how long: one hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely.
Some free apps relay your real-time location, too, including Google Maps and Google’s Family Link service, Meta’s Messenger and Snapchat’s Snap Map. Life360’s family-locator app is also free to use, but many households pay for its premium services.
Choose the service that fits with the devices and apps you and your closest contacts already use.
Riding safe
Uber and Lyft designed safety features especially for riders. Located in the apps’ settings, they do things like send trip details to an emergency contact, or record audio of the ride.
This coming week, Uber will let U.S. riders set some safety tools to start automatically—for all rides, night rides, weekend trips, or rides originating near a bar or restaurant. “There are situations where you don’t want to actively choose a feature. You just want it turned on," says Sachin Kansal, an Uber product-management vice president.
Once enabled, Uber will automatically share your trip status with one trusted contact. It shows your live location and driver details right away, and your contact will have access to the information for two hours.
Even without automatic tracking, you can activate it manually during rides by tapping the blue safety shield. That’s also where you can connect directly with emergency services and send them your live trip information.
Lyft has offered automatic live tracking since 2020. My app automatically shares my ride information with my fiancé for all nighttime trips.
Extreme cases
In rare circumstances, you might want more than just a virtual tether. The self-defense product market totaled $5.6 billion last year and is expected to rise 4.7% yearly through 2032, according to research firm Global Market Insights.
Internet-connected Tasers, safety alarms and pepper sprays from Sabre and Mace can alert your emergency contacts when you’ve used them. Some even connect with subscription-based security-monitoring services.
One major caveat: Some states restrict the use of these products. Also, all these devices must connect to a phone for tracking and SOS alerts. If your phone dies or gets stolen, or your Bluetooth connection fails, you’re out of luck.
I tried the Sabre $30 “smart" pepper spray, and two units both dropped their iPhone 15 Pro connections and wouldn’t automatically reconnect. When the Bluetooth held up, it worked as billed: I discharged the spray and the system texted my fiancé with a link to my location, and also robocalled him.
Security Equipment Corp., which makes Sabre products, is working on a new version with longer wireless range, and is trying to fix the older model’s connection issues, says Bob Nance, vice president of operations. If you notice the same spotty connection, use other tracking tech as a backup.
In all cases, it’s good to remember these tools are just a complement, says Kathleen Gallagher, who runs the crime-prevention firm SafetyChick. “Without that gut instinct of caring about your personal safety, all of the technology in the world is not going to help you."
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Write to Shara Tibken at [email protected]
