Women's Safety in Public Spaces: Examining the Efficacy of Panic Buttons in New Delhi

ABSTRACT

We present a qualitative inquiry through the lens of feminist Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) into women's perceptions of personal safety in New Delhi, India. Since a brutal gang-rape incident took place in Delhi in December 2012 and received global attention, women's safety has been the focus of much attention India-wide. In April 2016, the Indian government issued a mandate that all mobile phones sold in India 2017 onwards must include a panic button for women's safety. We draw on interview and survey data to examine women's responses to the mandate, also investigating what factors influence their perceptions of safety, positively and negatively. Our findings indicate that women's sense of safety may be deconstructed into a multitude of factors--personal, public, social, technological--that must align for this sense of safety to be preserved. We then discuss the implications these factors have for the success and (re-)design of the panic button and similar interventions.

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Index Terms

• Human-centered computing