SafeTREC – Advanced Mobile Safety

911 Services Lag Behind Cell Phone Technology

May 2, 2011

IT’S A MISTAKE TO ASSUME that because you call 911 from your cell phone, the dispatcher at the other end will know where you are – a dangerous mistake as one Army wife discovered.

“The phone rang at 4:43 am on March 27, 2007. Patty Michaels, a dispatcher at a 911 call center in Belleville, IL picked up. On the other end of the call, a woman screamed for help. She said her husband had attacked her. Michaels heard a baby crying in the background. The caller’s address appeared on Michaels’ screen: it was in O’Fallon, IL less than 10 miles away. Michaels asked the woman to confirm the location. “That’s when it got really tricky,” she says. The caller wasn’t in Illinois. She was in South Korea.

Two days earlier, the woman and her baby had left town to join her husband, an Army serviceman posted in Seoul, Korea. She was locked in her bedroom, afraid for her life. But because she had dialed 911 from a VOIP – voice over Internet protocol – service, Michaels had absolutely no way of finding her with the system. The 911 system doesn’t locate computers; it only shows the address that the phone service is registered to, and when Michaels’ caller left the country, she didn’t update her address.”

You can read the full story about the resourcefulness of this amazing dispatcher in the TIMES feature article at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2062452,00.html

We have come to assume that because our GPS-enabled phones may know exactly where we are, and because we see it every night on our favorite cop shows, that 911 will know where to send help when we call from our cell phone – or even just have it turned on. Unfortunately, television is not reality. Traditional emergency services don’t take texts, photos, Skype calls or videos either.

You see, 911 was designed for landlines and was not a very sophisticated technology. Beginning in 1968, it took 20 years for 911 to reach 50% of the US population and dispatchers couldn’t even tell where the calls were coming from! By the time this got sorted out along came the cell phone with advancements in technology far outstripping 911 technology by light years!

Enter the MobileTREC emergency cell phone application. When the user activates the MobileTREC Panic Button feature on their cell phone, a sequence of events occurs to provide the user with an immediate response. With a paid subscription, the MobileTREC state-of-the-art Call Center can accurately locate the caller even 10,000 miles away

If only that Army wife had the MobileTREC Panic Button installed, help would have arrived within moments. Sign up before you need it by clicking here - SafeKidZone or SafeTREC.com

Filed Under: In the News, Safekidzone, emergency dispatcher Tagged With: emergency, technology

MobileTREC Offers Help to Japan Assistance Organizations

March 25, 2011

LOS ANGELES, CA – March 16, 2011 – Los Angeles-based technology company, MobileTREC, is committed to helping communities in need, and has reached out to leading organizations such as Shelter Box, Interaction, U.S. State Department, World Vision, Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps, Convoy of Hope, American Red Cross, and Salvation Army to offer its personal safety technology, SafeKidZone and SafeTREC, which can assist support and rescue efforts for teams deployed on the ground. In recognition of the hardships currently faced by the citizens of Japan, MobileTREC is offering their services free of charge.

By using the MobileTREC applications on a mobile phone, the user can trigger a sequence of coordinated events that enhance personal and public safety. Through the use of a single Panic Button feature, MobileTREC can notify relief personnel of the location and status of a person via voice, SMS, and email mapping technologies anywhere in the world.

Simultaneously, MobileTREC’s 24/7 Emergency Response Center can open an immediate conference bridge with a personalized Safety Network of emergency contacts that includes friends, family, and co-workers. The company will automatically issue an emergency alert notification to team members who are within close proximity of an emergency incident. Most importantly, should an emergency arise during rescue efforts, the MobileTREC platform enables a coordinated response, delivering comprehensive incident information thereby offering the best chance for a coordinated, immediate, and effective response.

Using the MobileTREC services, relief teams will be able to geo-define and geo-locate both safe zones and danger zones so relief personnel will have a real-time, accurate, and clear picture of the environment in which they are operating.

“We are fortunate to be living at a time of advanced technologies, when forces can be mobilized and deployed for the health and well being of people where they need it and when they need it most. It is with great pride that we offer our platform and services to relief organization’s humanitarian efforts to help save and restore lives.” said Don Ferguson, CEO MobileTREC.

Filed Under: In the News, Japan disaster, Safekidzone Tagged With: emergency, gps tracking, technology

911: “Why are you asking so many questions?”

November 30, 2010

“Why are you asking so many questions? When are you going to send help? Can’t you tell where I’m calling from?”

Tampa Bay’s 911 managers hear those questions all the time. Their advice: stay as calm and patient as possible, listen carefully and keep answering all those questions.

This is from a recent news article in the St. Petersburg Times, an area just south of Tampa Bay, Florida.

This is exactly what often happens when a person experiencing an emergency decides to call 911 for help.

911 operators must determine several things. Paramedics, for example, can’t treat a victim of an attack until police secure the scene. And police need to know where the suspects are and if they’re armed.

With SafeKidZone, a real-time log is kept of what is going on in the emergency situation. This effectively enhances emergency management.

The St. Pete Times article also states that 911 systems can determine cell phone coordinates. This is not accurate. If you look at our earlier blog – accurately locating 911 calls, a person called 911 and a location was determined. However, it was actually the location of the cell phone tower 1.3 miles away! With SafeKidZone, our Global Positioning Satellite system can be as accurate as finding a 2 yard radius around the phone.

An emergency safety profile is also delivered by SafeKidZone to the 911 operators so that you can be identified quickly. The safety profile also contains any medical conditions you may have that could potentially affect your medical administration.

SafeKidZone provides the answers that 911 ask to do their job.

SafeKidZone revolutionizes the 911 response.

Filed Under: In the News, Safekidzone Tagged With: 911 cell call, cell coverage, emergency, gps tracking, how to use 911, news, technology

Can You Get an Accurate Location With 911 Cell Calls?

November 5, 2010

911 cell calls, 911 tracking, 911 dispatchers Calgary, Alberta, Canada wants to locate 911 cell phone calls. As it reads in this article, “The city is looking to make it easier to track cell phone calls made to 911.”

The article mentions putting up signs that callers can identify and read off to the emergency dispatcher to help locate the callers. There are quite a few locations in that town that have issues with 911 tracking where callers are located.

Even when 911 Dispatchers are able to locate you, the radius with which your location is determined can be over a mile. This happened in Memphis, Tennessee and can be observed in this short video. A 911 call was made about a crime and the coordinates were determined but the operators found the location to be out of their jurisdiction. When police arrived much later on the scene, the coordinates were a cell phone tower that was 1.3 miles away from where the body was located.

Such an instance is not acceptable to anybody when an emergency is occurring to them. We at SafeKidZone have the solution. Our service uses the accurate GPS in your smart phone to quickly and accurately locate you when an emergency arises.

To sign up for free, click HERE!

Filed Under: In the News, Safekidzone Tagged With: 911 cell call, 911 dispatchers, cell coverage, emergency, GPS, gps tracking, technology

CNN Lays Out Problem with e911

September 13, 2010

CNN has little hope for 911 cell calls

CNN has recognized the problem we’ve been talking about for months and months: the problem of cell tower triangulation when making a 911 call from your cell phone. Precious time can indeed be wasted when 911 services can’t find you accurately, but even when triangulation works fairly well, it’s not that accurate unless you’re in a best case scenario where it’s within 300 meters (984 feet) of your call.

Read the CNN article here and tell us what you think on facebook or twitter.

Keep in mind that for every minute wasted due to trying to get an initial fix on one’s phone with triangulation that the following questions still remain:

how much more time is wasted when the reading is inaccurate?
are people realistically going to check in with local 911 in each town they visit to get the local emergency number?
What happens when a 911 caller is not able to calmly explain the situation, especially if the caller is the victim?

It’s unfortunate that CNN believes that living in the mobile age means that getting emergency help from your cell phone is not as easy as it once was. This should not be the case since cell phones are tools meant to make life easier by virtue of their mobility and, nowadays, their advanced functions that let you organize your day, save all your contacts, find your way home, etc.

Cell phones are tools made to connect people and MobileTrec’s SafeKidZone is built on that philosophy. We connect 911 with the right PSAP for your area because we use real GPS, not triangulation. We connect you with your Safety Network right away – they are the ones who will help you even before 911 arrives. And, most importantly, we connect you with your community and family.

We already know the local emergency numbers so all you have to do is hit the panic button. Yes, the mobile age is here, but MobileTREC’ SafeKidZone is still making it easier to get help when you need it.

Filed Under: Safekidzone Tagged With: 911 cell call, cell coverage, cell tower triangulation, CNN, e911, how to use 911, panic button, psap, technology

No 911 location from cell phone calls? We beg to differ.

August 4, 2010

Today’s article entitled “No 911 location from cell phone calls” comes to us via The Democrat. It frames calling 911 from one’s cell phone as a problem because of a common problem of accurately locating where the call is originating since a cell phone is not tethered to any landlines. That is, back in the days before cell phones, 911 could find you easily because they knew where your land line was and what home address it was registered to.

Those were the days of the legacy systems but the alarming thing is that many 911 dispatch centers still use the very same systems to handle 911 calls today! The problem they face is that well over 90% of 911 cell calls come from cell phones nowadays. What’s more is that people are replacing their land lines altogether in favor of using their cell phones as their only phone line.

Most 911 calls come from Cell phones now.

And why not? Cell phones are packed with features and now we have smart phones (i.e. Blackberry and Android phones) which are essentially hand held computers that allow you to do just about anything. The iPad is nothing more than a giant iPhone, if you think about it, and it’s being marketed as a tablet computer.

The Democrat article drives home the fact that 911 operators have issues locating cell-based 911 calls which makes it harder for them to find you if you’re in an emergency, which means it takes longer to find you and that can be dangerous considering every second counts.

So what’s stopping them from upgrading their equipment to handle cell calls? Money. Here’s a quote right from the article:

Copeland says an equipment upgrade would help the problem, but it would cost the county several hundred thousand dollars to implement.

If you to tell us at SafeKidZone that this problem is a fact that you can’t change, our position would be this: we respectfully disagree. Although it is true that the problem described by the Democrat article is very real, we and our users all know that we have the solution and it doesn’t cost the city, the county or the state one red cent.

SafeKidZone sends your GPS location to 911 dispatchers. Period. That one simple fact about our service solves the problem completely, but that’s not enough for us. We’re serious about keeping you and your family safe so we’ve even included vital information and a photo that can be sent to 911 so they can not only locate you in an emergency, but also identify you quickly. We save time and have the potential to significantly cut down the time it takes for 911 to arrive with help simply because they know where you are and know what you look like.

That’s power.

Sign up and start making your streets safer from your cell phone.
Tell all your friends about us on facebook by clicking HERE ! Make sure you hit the “Like” button at the top of the page to spread the word!

Filed Under: In the News Tagged With: 911 cell call, apple, cell coverage, emergency, GPS, gps tracking, ipad, safekidszone, Safekidzone, technology

SafeKidZone might have saved Norma Lopez

July 22, 2010

Photo: LA Times

It is with great sadness that I write today about the abduction and slaying of Norma Lopez in Moreno Valley. The LA Times article is located HERE and you should give it a read and comment. Our hearts go out to Norma’s family and loved ones.

There is a killer among the residents of Moreno Valley, CA and those who knew Norma Lopez are living in fear. We’re tired of hearing about things like this and we’re tired of living in fear.

How long will we gamble with the balance between fear of change and our children’s safety? How long will we resist change?

We at SafeKidZone know that although we are stalwart allies in the fight against sex offenders, murderers and kidnappers, we are also fighting our own small battle against the winds of change. People sometimes fear change, for example change in the way that SafeKidZone is changing how people use their cell phones. No longer is a cell phone just a toy to text your friends with, but with our service we turn it into a vital safety device that can actually prevent danger or stop a crime in progress if used correctly. A crime no different than the one that claimed the life of Norma Lopez.

The LA Times article raises chilling questions and issues. Here are some quotes from the piece:

“With word that a killer was among them, fear spread quickly among Moreno Valley’s parents and teenagers Wednesday after authorities confirmed that a body found near a patch of farmland was that of a missing 17-year-old high school student.”

“Sonia DeLeon, a prenatal health counselor, wasn’t taking any chances. She’s sending her 17-year-old daughter to live with relatives in San Diego County for a few weeks.”

“It’s scary. The person is still out there,” DeLeon said. “I work, my husband works, we can’t keep an eye on her every minute.”
“News of Lopez’s death, mostly through text messages and cellphones, traveled quickly through her school long before the Sheriff’s Department made the official announcement, Principal Kristen Hunter said.”

SafeKidZone could have helped. Here’s how:

Killer among them: SafeKidZone has access to the National Sex Offender Registry and Crime Data. That means that parents in the area could know about what’s happening in their neighborhood and whether a sex offender lives near and set proximity alerts when a kid gets near a sex offender or crime zone.
Sending her 17-year-old daughter to San Diego: There is no need to do this in a general sense when your kid has SafeKidZone running on their cellphone. San Diego, while a beautiful city, is not inherently more safe than the place where Norma Lopez was abducted. Lest we forget that Chelsea King and Amber Dubois were both abducted in San Diego. SafeKidZone is a community application meaning that out goal is to help build safer communities through vigilance and information sharing between neighbours. Moreno Valley could be made much safer if residents there adopted SKZ as a safety solution.
I work, my husband works, we can’t keep an eye on her every minute: Yes you can with SafeKidZone’s real time GPS tracking. We don’t expect parents to watch every movement of their child, but in an emergency a child in trouble can hit the Panic Button, which will send an email and text alert to the parent with GPS coordinates on a map and situational information, while also opening a conference call with our Call Center and others in your personal safety network. If it turns out that it’s a real emergency Safety Network Members or our call center will escalate the Panic Button alert and all the information to police.
News of death traveled quickly through texts and cellphones: Wouldn’t it be great if instead of news of death being transmitted over cellphone networks, we could have news of life and a chance to stop a kidnapping or murder from happening? Yes! SafeKidZone already does this. The Panic Button sends a text and email AND a phone call from the kid’s cellphone to people who can help.

So what’s the hold up, people? SafeKidZone values your privacy and there there is no privacy issue since personal and location information is only shared between you and people you hand-selected as trustworthy individuals. Our product works on just about every cellphone on the market with an iPhone 4 app forthcoming, so there is no compatibility issue. Our product works – period.

The battle we fight is making sure people spread the word and open their minds to change. So spread the word,with one or all of the links below, for the sake of your children and ours. We can’t afford to wait any longer.

Join us by clicking HERE.
Follow us by clicking HERE and HERE.
Share this post, get active! Contact us by clicking HERE.

Filed Under: In the News, Safekidzone Tagged With: 911 cell call, abduction, Chelsea King, LA Times, Moreno Valley, Norma Lopez, Safekidzone, sex offender, technology

Facebook installs ‘panic button’ for children

July 13, 2010

Today we talk about the concept of a panic button both online and “offline.”

I was sent this article about Facebook installing a ‘panic button’ for children. The article appeared in Yahoo News and tells of Facebook piloting a “panic button” that will allow kids to click it when they think they see suspicious behavior.

Online panic buttons are only 1/3 of the battle

The implications here are optimistic and I can see that perhaps the the most common use for this would be someone else reporting what they think is suspicious behavior relating to another user who may be a potential victim of an online sex offender. The reason I say this is that, as in the article, the victims of online sex offenders usually don’t know that they are victims until its too late and they are already physically in the clutches of a violent offender.

While SafeKidZone is all for any form of child protection measure we still have to ask the question of “how does this work in real life?” That is, although the prevalence of online sex offenders is pretty big, the hard fact is that it’s a lot harder for a sex offender to get to your kid online than it is for him to get him when s/he’s out for a jog, or walking home from school. The hard fact is that all sex offenses happen in person. It’s one thing for an offender to type messages to your kid, but it’s a whole other terrible ballgame when that kid meets up in person with that offender.

So let’s say that the Facebook panic button doesn’t do its job and your child finds him/herself setting up a meeting with an online sex offender and actually meeting them. What can they do when they’re in imminent danger? Hit the “offline” SafeKidZone Panic Button, that’s what. Not only will the panic button send a message to a kid’s safety network that they are in trouble but it also has the ability to alert 911 and give real GPS coordinates to emergency responders no matter where your child is. The SafeKidZone panic button is ALWAYS there for you and your family whether you’re at the computer or out and about and that’s a true comprehensive safety measure.

I’m also happy to announce that SafeKidZone is now officially fully 911 routing capable! That means you can be sure that 911 will be there for you in an emergency that calls for help from the professional heroes at our 911 dispatch centers!

So what are you waiting for? Share this blog and download SafeKidZone to your phone HERE!

Filed Under: Safekidzone Tagged With: 911 cell call, facebook, facebook panic button, panic button, Safekidzone, sex offender, social media, technology

NXNEi and GovCamp

June 27, 2010

So if you’ve been following our tweets, you may be wondering what on earth is NXNEi and GovCamp. Well I’ll tell you that they are very exciting to say the least!

I was privileged enough to be attend North By Northeast in Toronto for the last two days and even more privileged to take part in the first interactive conference offered by it in Canada. NXNE is the counterpart to South By Southwest and is a place where the most influential people in media and technology come together in a mutual forum to discuss the future of communications, entertainment and interactive technology, like SafeKidZone. Some of the best developers and web gurus were present and I was honored to meet Ze Frank, Zachary Lieberman, and Erica Ehm or YummyMummyClub.ca.

In the past, I’ve recommended Cafémom.com as a great forum for moms to talk about all the issues, so I’m excited to recommend Yummy mummy club as well to our Canadian subscribers. Yummy Mummy Club is a website for moms to come together and discuss just about anything they want with the common ground of being parents. They are providing a great sounding board for mothers to become part of a very large community to pass on pearls of wisdom whether they be advice about how best parent one’s child to where to find that perfect nail polish color. Either way, it’s the place to be and if you’re a a Canadian mom, I highly recommend yummymummyclub.ca

On to GovCamp: If I could describe it in one word, that word would be “challenging.” GovCamp was put on by Microsoft and it was a forum to demonstrate and learn about applications that utilize public data. Obviously this was right up SafeKidZone‘s alley.

SKZ's table at GovCamp

I met some influential people in the Canadian government and one in particular really grilled me about the implications of SafeKidZone. Her main concern was privacy and I was happy to inform her that SafeKidZone usage is opt-in, permission based. That is, a SafeKidZone user with a

protected phone can invite specific people to their safety network who are trusted and then decide how much information to share with each individual in their network. For example, if you don’t want to share your panic button alerts but don’t want to share your location with a contact you can set that.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been to several conferences, met many people and showed SafeKidZone to just about every person I’ve spoken to and I noticed that the common response from all those who have discovered SKZ has consistently been positive. To be more specific, people are feeling like SKZ is simply a no-brainer, or what I like to call, an “idea in good currency.” Of course! Who wouldn’t want to keep their families safe in a socially responsible way! This sentiment keeps us going and we appreciate your input at all times.

So please sign up for safekidzone and help us make it better! Download it to your phone and give us your feedback – we’re always listening. Email us or join the conversation on twitter.

Rolling with the hard questions

Filed Under: Safekidzone Tagged With: 911 cell call, family safety, Govcamp, GPS, NXNE, NXNEi, Safekidzone, safety, technology

Police Force Cuts

June 11, 2010

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Bell City Council to vote on cutting police force | 89.3 KPCC.

The article linked above is a bit unsettling. Bell City is situated pretty much at the heart of the Los Angeles area and they’re thinking of cutting their local police force.

It’s no secret that police in that area are spread a little thin and it’s not just in Bell City. The Wall Street Journal did a piece on the cutting of police all over California and it’s not just happening in California either. It’s happening in Dallas, Boston, Jacksonville and pretty much all over the country.

The common cause? Budget contraints. We’re still in a recession, no two ways about it, and it’s serious enough that cities are actually considering cutting essential service like police! It’s no stretch of the imagination to know what this means for the safety of our communities, families, and friends.

One of the main reasons SafeKidZone was established was because we knew that much of the problem of improving 911 systems and helping police, fire and ambulance save lives more efficiently depended on what the fiscal budget was relating to such an undertaking. Most emergency departments simply can’t hire and train more staff and they certainly can’t budget out the equipment costs related to improving 911 services to be up to date in a cell-phone user’s society.

So we figured we would GIVE them a call center staffed with trained representatives and build the technology that could bridge the gap to keep our communities safer while making our 911 heroes’ jobs that much easier.

So if you’re reading this and you live in a town, city, county or state that is thinking of cutting its police force, speak up! Take SafeKidZone to your representatives and tell them that you have a way!

Follow us on twitter and facebook or go to our website and Sign Up! We support most cell phones and that also includes Blackberry and Android!

Here’s a video of concerned community members speaking out in Jacksonville.

Filed Under: In the News Tagged With: 911 cell call, Bell City, boston globe, cell coverage, emergency, family, GPS, gps tracking, police, police force cuts, recession, Safekidzone, safety, sex offender, technology, wall street journal