Get home safe!” are words carved in most women’s vocabulary. We usually say it in the evening, when it’s dark – to our friend leaving a house party, to our sister getting a bus home after a dinner, or a colleague going home after a late shift. And then, a short while later, we open WhatsApp to a new message that reads: “Did you get home safe?”
It may just be another part of how we bid farewell at the end of the night. But it’s also a reminder of how, when we’re alone in a town or city at night, our safety is no guarantee.
While there’s much we can do to stay safe by taking sensible precautions, could our phones also help?
Apps that address traveller safety are not new. In the past, they’ve often focused on cities, and relied on crowd-sourcing information from users. Some apps send users push notifications to alert them of reported crimes that are close by. Others have asked users to submit personal experiences of verbal attacks or assaults.
But what’s been missing from the tech industry’s approach to safety is a focus on route-mapping catered to women.
A part of this problem is clear: there are fewer women than men leading product and design decisions. And so as long as the industry is still mostly male-dominated, the issue of women’s safety is less likely at the forefront of the minds of those developing travel apps.
And nowhere could this be more apparent than the most popular travel apps used by millions of people living in cities every day.
Google Maps and CityMapper are apps which offer the quickest, most convenient route to a destination. However, neither app offers an option for safety, or “night” mode. This may seem like an unfair request, or too demanding of an ask. But CityMapper already offers a “rain safe” and “step-free” mode, even a “cold safe” mode. And when you consider both apps often offer routes to users that direct them down pitch-black paths at night, an option that at least considered street lighting wouldn’t go amiss.
A greater focus on safer routes at night has been flagged by concerned users for years. Most recently, a woman tweeted her experience, saying CityMapper’s suggested route left her stranded, after she missed the last train home. Lil Patuck, who works in tech herself, said if CityMapper had told her it was the last train, she‘d have taken the bus, and would have avoided walking alone. The app then directed her through deserted roads and “dark, creepy alleyways” late at night.
Pauck tweeted: “Whoever leads, tech needs sensitive responsible design – ie rather than telling a user to ‘go catch this train’, also tell them: ‘It’s the last one – are you sure? Here’s a safe alternative.’”
While CityMapper and Google Maps haven’t announced plans to introduce any form of “safe” or “night” mode for users, others in the tech space are trying to answer safety concerns for women.
In the US, Lexie Ernst and Jake Wayne founded the app Companion, which lets you enter a destination, and then add friends and family to monitor your journey home. The duo created the app for both men and women in mind, and while it doesn’t provide a safe route option, it does allow users to request help from those nearby, and be able to call 911 with one tap.
And last year, Jillian Kowalchuk, 32, launched the app Safe & The City, aimed at women. The app rates routes based on practical elements, such as street safety and lighting, whether nearby businesses are open, and if crimes have been reported to the police in the area.
Kowalchuk has spoken about the challenges she faced in developing an app concerning women’s safety, and as a founder. “As a female founder I often find I am one of a few in the tech sector. I have found it a challenge. I was a bit naive about the ecosystem I was coming into – I had a few situations where I was sexually harassed by investors or developers.”
Kowalchuk is hoping to fill a void in the tech space, listening to women and building on their feedback.
Still, while some women are addressing gender-specific safety concerns in the tech space, the launch of previous safety apps has shown us there’s still a need for women from different backgrounds and ethnicities to be behind the making of these apps, too.
In 2014, the app SketchFactor launched, allowing users to report having seen or experienced something, or seen someone, they deemed to be “sketchy” in a particular location, and add their rating, so users can then avoid those areas.
The app caused huge controversy in the US, as critics argued the term “sketchy” is a dog whistle for “minorities”, and what users interpreted as “sketchy” would encourage racial profiling. The two founders, who are white, denied their app would be used by other white people to avoid black neighbourhoods.
Including reported crime incidents is one thing for tech founders to consider in their app. But asking users to rate the “trustworthiness” of the people around them, or of a neighbourhood – like the Safe & The City app encourages – is at risk of facing the same criticism SketchFactor faced.
A safety app isn’t a sure-fire way to protect women from a possible attack or assault. And a “night mode” isn’t going to stop women from being followed or harassed. But to have these tools – and to have a more diverse pool of women behind the making of them – would still be useful. So the next time we tell a friend “get home safe” at the end of a night, we can be somewhat less worrisome.
