By Joe Robertson
Towson University Police Communications released its SaferMobility application Monday morning, which offers students three ways to contact police on campus.
The application connects students to police through live video chat, text messaging and a mobile security escort service.
“It’s just one more safety tool that people can keep in their tool boxes,” said Towson University Police Capitan Karen Johnson.
Once the application is opened, police can be directly contacted by tapping the call feature. A live video stream provides officers direct information that can make it easier to identify people in ongoing crimes, Johnson said.
“We have direct clothing description, size, height, weight, instead of leaving that open to somebody else’s interpretation,” Johnson said.
Within the video call feature is an option to send a text to the dispatcher connected through the video. By muting the sound of the call, students can send messages in a situation where they are hiding, Johnson said.
She said the video and text feature is particularly helpful to those who are hearing or speech impaired.
The mobile escort service calls TU police and gives geographical information to police by lifting a finger off the screen. If a student feels unsafe on a walk home, he or she can activate the service by holding their thumb on the phones’ screen.
If the finger is lifted off the screen it gives five seconds to cancel an alarm. Then a 30-second timer will call police unless a pin code is entered. If police need to be notified immediately, clearing out of the touch-release feature and tapping the screen will directly call campus police, Johnson said.
Along with geographic information, campus police will be provided with the student’s name, email and phone number, which are the minimum requirements for signing up.
Additional space is allotted to include pertinent health information in case of an emergency.
The video feature only works on campus at Towson University. When using the application outside of campus a message will ask if this is an emergency and offer an option to call 911, Johnson said.
She urges people to be mindful of potential updates from the developer, SaferMobility, which is run out of the University of Maryland’s information technology department.
Over 70 students attempted to “test” the service within the last 24-hours, Johnson said. However, she urges students that there is no need to test the service if the icon has appeared on their screen.
“When you activate the application, it’s the same as calling 911,” Johnson said.
SaferMobility approached Towson Universities Student Government Association in 2014 to create the application for students. Towsons’ SGA is sponsoring the contract for the first year of the project.
After a year, the school and SGA will assess the effectiveness of the application and decide whether to invest further into the application, Johnson said.
“It does seem to be kind of a trend,” Johnson said. “Most municipality’s law enforcement agencies don’t have a text to 911 feature, nationally some are moving in that direction.”