Heading to the Summer Olympics? Safeture is an app that will help athletes and travelers stay safe. Global Warning System (GWS) just released a special version of its Safeture personal security app for iOS and Android that provides travelers with real-time warnings, alerts and useful facts about security, safety and health threats around the world, sent directly to smartphones. The first 10,000 people who download or activate the app on site in Rio get it free.
I just downloaded it here in California and it didn’t cost me anything, either. Though it had incidents for California, none were too useful. But when I changed the location (to do this in iOS, tap the globe symbol in the upper-right corner) and switched to Brazil, it provided much more valuable information like traffic disruptions and light rail service interruption due to a bomb alert. They make it easy to identify the most important information with red, orange and green dots next to each reported incident.
Safeture is supported by a 24/7 analytical support team and helps keeps travelers situationally aware about problems, actual or possible. The app allows users to share their location with family, friends and work colleagues so they can know a person’s whereabouts at any given time, and it provides a one-click connection to local emergency resources in the event a potentially dangerous situation arises. Other features include:
- Real-time notifications via SMS and direct push notifications
- Automatic translation of messages and texts in 90 languages
- Local news reports
- Local emergency contact information
- “Walk me home” feature that alerts family and friends and gives them a real-time trail of movements
The company also set up a special Safeture Rio website for Olympic travelers at riosafety2016.com.
