When a scary situation turns really nasty, the victim doesn't always have the time to search for a cell phone, punch in 911, wait for a response and relay the details of the situation to a dispatcher.
The need for a faster, easier solution to this problem struck Leandra Vicci, director of the microelectronics system laboratory at the University of North Carolina.
"Last year at our campus, within a two-week period, there were two rape attempts reported. Some said the victims should have got out their cell phone and called 911 but I thought -- nah..." Vicci said.
It occurred to Vicci that the technology already existed to launch a faster 911 service. It was simply a matter of putting it together in one package. Little did she realize then the technical and political obstacles that awaited her.
Vicci came up with global positioning system technology for location, cell-phone chips for wireless connection and a geographic information system, or GIS, server that can translate location coordinates into plain language.
Add a microphone to record sounds at the scene, connect all the elements to a microprocessor, incorporate it into a pendant or lanyard, and you get a proactive solution to potentially serious problems.
"It's strictly conceptual at this point," Vicci said.
Some skeptics think it will be some time before it could go into production. And there is the matter of the law: Some states do not permit 911 calls to come from automated devices.
"It has a bit of the smell of someone who doesn't know what's going on in the industry," said Tom Wrappe, vice president of product and program management for SnapTrack, a producer of wireless device location technology.
"Being tracked all the time would require a big battery. There is a power constraint. It might be small but it won't disappear into a pendant," Wrappe said.
Moses Asom, COO and founder of Sychip, designer and marketer of modules for wireless Internet appliances, agrees that size is an issue.
"The concept is reasonable but the size may be a problem.... It would be OK for a rock star who likes big necklaces," he said. However, Asom is confident that, with the focus on the need to create increasingly smaller devices in this field, the concept is viable.
For the time being, Vicci is concentrating her efforts on making the device easy to use. "You don't have to turn it on and dial and wait for an answer -- you just yank it a couple of times and the rest of the process is completely automated," Vicci said.
This advantage also highlights a problem -- accidental triggering: "You want to avoid false 911 calls going out," Vicci said.
"You could have a more elaborate way of triggering the device but it can't be so elaborate that it makes the process as complicated as a cell phone," Vicci said.
Another advantage of the device is that it remains mute; the assailant would have no idea that an alarm had been triggered.
The user, on the other hand, would have to know the device had been activated. He or she would then have the comfort of knowing help was on the way or, in the case of an accidental trigger, could call 911 and alert them to a false alarm.
Vicci suggested a short vibration to indicate the pendant had been activated.
Once triggered, the device -- which has been continuously logging the victim's coordinates by GPS -- contacts the GIS server by a cell-phone chip.
"The microprocessor executes a program which does the equivalent of punching in the numbers on a phone keypad that is needed to contact the GIS server," Vicci said. "It will wait until it gets an answer."
A GIS server is a database that has street maps, addresses, elevation, and latitude and longitude coordinates at its disposal. It can translate the relayed coordinates into a real-world geographical position and forward this information, by means of a synthesized voice message, to the nearest 911 dispatcher.
The dispatcher would hear a message along the lines of: "This is an automated report of an emergency occurring. What you will hear is from a microphone at the scene of the emergency."
A microphone embedded in the pendant would be activated and patched over so a 911 dispatcher could hear what is happening at the scene.
"The microphone will be sensitive enough to record (the sounds of) a struggle, or if you are being threatened, up to a distance of five to 10 feet," Vicci said.
A stumbling block with this is the dispatcher's willingness to take the call: Many states have a law prohibiting individuals from placing automated 911 calls.
"More than 10 (states) ... enforce this law," said Norm Forshee, executive officer of National Emergency Number Association.
"Under law in California, you are not legally allowed to dial 911 with an automated/electronic voice message," said Kerry Dalrymple, client services director of the San Francisco Emergency Communication Department.
The reason is that the dispatcher would be unable to solicit a response from the caller, making it difficult to determine the nature of the emergency and who to send -- fire, paramedics or police.
"We do get these calls, but we hate them because it is up to the judgment of the operator and it can be really hard to call. If they are wrong, they are on the carpet," Dalrymple said.
Use of the microphone does not appease Dalrymple's concerns: "Some of the calls may be obvious some may not. We might hear a heated argument, and it could be the TV."
Dalrymple maintains the device could be useful in special cases if it was known what kind of problem the victim was facing: "If we knew the person was elderly, a domestic violence victim, was deaf or had a recurring medical problem, then we would know who to send out."
Asom is also aware of dispatcher problems: "The infrastructure needs to be developed," he said. "E-911 call centers do not exist yet, and 911 operators are not set up to take calls like this."
Then there's the matter of current GPS technology, which doesn't work everywhere. If the victim is in a building, or a large city full of skyscrapers, the signal can be blocked. Add to that, the user has to be constantly tracked so that his or her latest coordinates are available.
"It would be good to have a time element attached to the coordinates so that it would be known how old they were in relation to the position given," Vicci said.
Constant tracking often raises a red flag to privacy advocates. Whenever GPS location technology is mentioned, privacy issues are usually just around the corner.
But David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, doesn't think it would be an issue with this device. "It sounds as if the capability to locate is in the control of the user -- and this is what we need to focus on when looking at this technology.
"There are obvious benefits from GPS and location technology so long as the user has control over it."
