The Gauteng department of community safety has started distributing e-panic buttons in Diepsloot as part of premier Panyaza Lesufi's new plan to wield technology against crime.
Lesufi said he had started distributing panic buttons that residents could use to alert law enforcement when in danger.
Motsobane Ledwaba, project manager for the e-panic button initiative in the community safety department, said an app had been introduced to gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) activists in Diepsloot.
“You first download the app, and it requires you to pay for a subscription, but we have paid for them. It then requires a coupon which you put it in and you are activated. When you are in danger you press it and indicate if you need security or medical assistance.
“Call centre facilities will be able to pick your location and the nearest armed response or ambulance to you. Then the call centre will call you to get more information. We are trying to mitigate against the response time as communities complain that police take time to arrive on the scene,” Ledwaba said.
For now, the app is linked to a call centre that has access to “most security companies in the province” and will not immediately bring police as it is yet to be interfaced with their systems.
Security companies have promised they would reach the resident in 15 minutes, he said.
The app has been made available to more than 3,000 people in the province, according to Ledwaba.
“When the activists pick up that a woman or elderly person lives alone, they can share the app,” Ledwaba said.
To download the e-panic button they need to be able to connect to the internet. A code is required which the brigade then shares, enabling the user to activate the app. Ledwaba said soon the panic button would come in a form of a “dongle” which, when pressed, would send a signal to the call centre to help those without smartphones.
We don’t know anything about panic buttons ... We welcome any response that will help fight crime in Diepsloot but the CPF must be involved because they are the ones mobilising the community to fight crime.
— Diepsloot CPF secretary Kutlwano Moalosi
There is also work being done to introduce it in a form of a USSD option, which will work like a “please call me” feature.
Nonhlanhla Madlala, a member of the GBVF group in Diepsloot, said they started distributing the app on Thursday.
“I have had the app since November last year but have not been in a situation that required me to use it. Today was the first day that we had the codes that allow us to distribute the e-panic button to victims of gender-based violence,” Madlala said.
She added there would soon be a meeting where the initiative would be presented to other organisations fighting crime in Diepsloot.
Most Diepslooot residents are unaware of the new panic app.
Diepsloot community policing forum secretary Kutlwano Moalosi said: “We don’t know anything about panic buttons ... We welcome any response that will help us fight crime in Diepsloot, but the CPF must be involved because they are the ones mobilising the community to fight crime.”
Nono Maseko, a senior counsellor at the SA Depression and Anxiety Group, which has been working with other civil society groups in Diepsloot, said: “You don’t just come and introduce something without involving those on the ground.”
Maseko said there had been a similar initiative that failed as the elderly could not use it because it required a smartphone.
She welcomed any effort to fight crime in the township.
Local councillors were, however, not aware of the app.
The e-panic buttons are part of an ambitious plan by Lesufi to use technology to end crime in the province.
About R8bn has been set aside over three years to use drones and helicopters to improve response when Gauteng residents are faced with danger.
Lesufi said the province would also use 6,000 new police wardens who would be on the streets from May 1 to support police in fighting crime. They would have the authority to arrest people.
According to the latest quarterly crime statistics released by police minister Bheki Cele last month, Diepsloot was among the 30 police stations with the most rape cases in the country.
Diepsloot also makes the top 30 in the category of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
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