The Department of Telecommunications has notified the “Panic Button and Global Positioning System in Mobile Phone Handsets Rules 2016”. The Ministry of Women and Child Development had taken up the issue of installation of a physical panic button on mobile phones as one of the initiatives in June 2014. It was observed that in order to provide safety to women in distress situation, it is important to enable them to send out distress signal to a family member or the police authorities so that they can be rescued.

The Ministry had discussed this issue with a number of stakeholders as well as Department of Telecommunications and had insisted that a physical panic button is much superior to having an App on the mobile phone. After an elaborate process of discussion and deliberation, the Department of Telecommunications as well stakeholders finally agreed to have this facility installed in the mobile phones.

Accordingly, the Department of Telecommunications has notified the rules on panic button vide notification dated 22nd April, 2016 issued under section 10 of the Indian Wireless Telegraph Act 1933. Under these rules, w.e.f. 1.1.2017, all feature phones will have the facility of panic button configured to the numeric key 5 or 9 and all smart phones will have the panic button configured to three times short pressing of the on-off button. Further, w.e.f. 1.1.2018, all mobile phones will be required to have the facility of identifying the location through satellite based GPS.