• The Gauteng Department of eGov has been working with Response24 on a Gauteng epanic button app where you can send alerts to family, armed response or EMS.
• The app is now available to download on iOS and Android, but it is still a work in progress.
• As of now, the app sends alert notifications to friends and family that you are in distress.

After first being announced last year in October, the “e-panic button app” that the was proposed by the Gauteng Provincial Government and Premier Panyaza Lesufi has launched in a trial basis.

Epanic buttons, as well as youth wardens, drone tracking and the deployment of more CCTV cameras were all crime prevention techniques outlined by the Gauteng Department of eGovernment and the premier when he first took office.

As of now, the youth wardens are on the street, and the epanic button is available. No word yet on the drone tracking, or CCTV cameras.

The app can now be downloaded on the Google Play Store and the App Store for free, with Lesufi saying on Twitter that the app is “almost there.”

Apparently, it is being tested by staff members of the provincial government but average users can download the app and take a look at some of its features. It was built by Response 24, and the Gauteng Panic Button app looks like a themed reskin of the company’s other alert notification apps. Below you can see what the main UI looks like:

The top button on the right is used to send a notification to your family and friends that you are in distress, and we can confirm that this feature does work as of time of writing. However, you will first need to allow the app to access your contacts and add a contact that also has the app installed and has themselves allowed access.

You must also allow notifications to be sent to your contacts on the app.

Your own alert lasts for as long as you keep it active, but your friends and family can deactive your alert on their side. They will receive a ” Are you sure this person is no longer in distress?” message.

We can’t confirm if the “Send an Alert to Armed Response” and “Send an Alert to Medical Services” buttons right now, but the buttons do prepare to send an alert to these agencies. The medical services alert apparently sends a message to emergency medical service ER24, but does not indicate which armed response company will receive the alert.

There is also a Messages button where it seems you will be able to send message to someone or something at Response 24.

However this feature doesn’t seem to be working as of right now. The GPS tracking is working, but we were unable to see the GPS location of friends and family as of right now. Also, even though the app is supposed to be for Gauteng, the entire of South Africa is visible from the map.

We will await more word from Gauteng government on when the app will be ready for users, until then we recommend Namola if you’re looking for a local panic button and personal safety app.