Efficient Anti-Kidnapping and Anti-Harassment
(Avoidance-Detection-Notification) Mobile
Application for Unwanted Incidents
Md. Elias Hossain1, Mostafijur Rahman1, Khandker M Qaiduzzaman1, Asif Khan Shakir1, Md Maruf Hassan1
1
Department of Software Engineering, Daffodil International University, Bangladesh
Email: elias.hossain191@gmail.com
Abstract— Kidnapping and harassment is not only a global
issue but also a historic issue in Bangladesh. In between the years
of 2010 and 2018, the total number of kidnapping events were
found, 6708 (Avg. 745.33 events per year) in Bangladesh. The
government is trying to capture and punish the kidnappers. But
there are a few ways by which the victim can also notify the
responsible persons about the unwanted incidents in real-time.
This research proposes to design and develop an anti-kidnapping
and anti-harassment mobile application that is consists of two
modules, the Avoidance and the Detection modules. The
Avoidance module notifies the user about some unsafe locations.
The Detection module is further divided into four sub-modules,
the Notification module, Sound module, Sensor module, and Spy
module. The Notification module is activated by pressing the SOS
key and the Sound module is activated by voice command. Both of
these modules can send the current location of the user by sending
SMS to some selected contact numbers. In the Voice module, the
audio voice can be recorded for 15 seconds and saved in phone
storage or cloud. The Sensor module uses accelerometer sensor
and compass sensor. During unwanted circumstances, the
accelerometer sensor is activated by shaking the phone three times
and the compass sensor is activated by the movement of the user.
The Notification module is tested by sending notifications in
different areas in Bangladesh. It is found that the average response
time of the notification module is 0.74 milliseconds. The complete
application is tested by following the System Usability Scale (SUS)
method. It is found that the SUS score of the system is 75.56 %,
which indicates that the system is good enough to use.
Keywords— Kidnap, Ransom, Save-Our-Souls key, System
Usability Scale (SUS), safety barometer.
I. INTRODUCTION
Kidnapping is abducting and holding anybody captive.
Kidnappers may hold the captives longer to demand the ransom
from the victim relatives. Unemployment, poverty, religion,
political issues are the source of kidnapping. Kidnapping can be
categorized as follows: Domestic Kidnapping, Predatory
Kidnapping-Adult Victim, Predatory Kidnapping-Child Victim,
Profit Kidnapping, Revenge Kidnapping, Staged Kidnapping,
and Political Kidnapping. Besides the kidnapping, harassment
may cause an uncomfortable or threatening situation. The
harassment may consist of unwelcome or offensive behavior and
contributes to a hostile work environment. The harassment can
be Physical Harassment, Personal Harassment, Discriminatory
Harassment, Psychological Harassment, Cyberbullying, Sexual
Harassment, 3rd Party Harassment, etc. According to the FBI
XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEE
report, in 2014 there were 635,155 cases of the missing adults
and children [1] and 1,500 were hijacked. Bangladesh Police
published on the official website about the kidnapping results
(shown in Table I) inside Bangladesh [2]. The kidnapping and
harassment could not be solved only by the involvement of the
government. Therefore researchers are doing research to cope
with the kidnap and harassment by using technologies.
TABLE I. KIDNAP REPORT BY BANGLADESH POLICE [20]
Year
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Kidnap 92 80
870 792 850 879 639 509 444
ping 0 5
The rising of mobile technologies with attractive features,
peoples are depending (shopping, renting, recharging utilities,
etc. from remote areas) with smartphone applications day by
day. There are many anti-kidnapping apps available based on
Android and IOS platform. However, the apps are claiming as
an invention by adding some attractive features and place to use.
Some software and hardware interactive systems are used for
anti-kidnapping purpose. The authors Geetha, et. al. [3]
developed a women safety system, which resembles a band on
the wrist incorporated with pressure-switch as an input. The
pressure-switch-on starts noisy alarm and tear gas for self-
defence. Immediate notifications (such as current location and
messages) are sent to the emergency contacts. WoSApp
(Women's Safety App)[4] able to place an emergency call (by
shaking the phone or manually) to the police. A message
containing the geographical location and some emergency
contact details sent to the police. The Suraksha [5] is a device
used to send an instant location to the selected numbers. A
system [6] able to send information about the missed child on a
periodical basis. Authors developed an app [7] which able to use
during an accident. By pressing SOS key the location, health-
related problems and occurrence information are sent to the
selected numbers. Audio and video recording information also
able to send by email. An extra option is found in the
development is Fake call generation, where the attacker may
think the apps holder is talking with nearby people which may
easy to get help. The paper [8] proposed a voice command based
mobile application. By voice command, the system can perform
some actions. The action can be sending place to the registered
contact numbers, starting an audio recording, saving it to the
phone, etc. This paper used Google Speech Recognition API that
will convert voice to text and user can be saved contact number
through by voice command. Table II shows some existing top
ranking anti-kidnapping application used in Android and IOS
platforms with different features.

TABLE II. EXISTING TOP RANKING ANTI-KIDNAPPING

APPS
No Apps Name Platform Short Description

1 I’m Getting Android Broadcast custom text with

Kidnapped [9] Location.
2 WePROTECT IOS Notify safe &Unsafe location. Fig. 1: Proposed System Architecture Diagram
[10]
3 Kid Control [11] Android Location monitoring..
4 Life360 [12] Android Family protect By crash detection
service.
A. Notification module
5 Family & IOS View family member location in Figure 2 shows the functionality of the Notification Module.
Friends Locator map. This module consists of two inputs. The phone key pressing
[13] directs the system to send a notification to the selected contact
6 Family Locator- Android Location monitoring.
GPS Tracker & IOS
number(s). The phone key can be Safe Our Souls (SOS) key,
[14] e.g., power button, volume up and down button. The Earphone
7 Raksha [15] Android Sending current location to the media key pressing directs the system to send a notification to
registered number. the selected number(s). The Earphone media key can be a media
8 My safety pin Android Notify safe and unsafe area. pause button, media action up button and media action down
[16] button. In our system both Phone key pressing and Earphone key
9 BSafe [17] Android Location sending by SOS button
pressing & voice command.
pressing are used, however, the direction to use the input
10 SOS App [18] Android Sending location by pressing SOS systems are for different circumstances. During unwanted
button. circumstances, when the phone is in our hand the SOS key
11 VithU [19] Android Helping people from unwanted pressing is suitable to use. On the other hand, during unwanted
circumstances. circumstances occurred and users hearing something using
12 Chilla [20] Android Send location by pressing the Earphone, it's recommended to press Ear-phone media key. In
power button three times.
this figure, the user sends a signal to the system either by long
power key pressing or long Earphone pause key pressing. Both
long keys press triggering the system to send the GPS location
and call to the selected contact number.
II. METHODOLOGY
This section discusses the proposed methods. Figure 1 shows
the architectural design of the proposed. The design consists of
Avoidance and Detection part. The Avoidance module notifies
the user about the unsafe location. The Detection part consists
of four modules, such as the Notification Module, Sound
Module, Sensor Module, and Spy Module. The Notification
module activates by pressing SOS key and send the current
location by SMS to the selected numbers. The Sound Module
activates on voice command and sends the current location by
SMS to the selected numbers, audio voice also recorded for 15
seconds and save it to phone storage & cloud as well. The Sensor
module uses accelerometer sensor and compass sensor. During
unwanted circumstances, the accelerometer sensor activates by
shaking phone three times, the compass sensor activates by user
movement.

Fig. 2: Notification module details component category

B. Sound module
This module starts on voice command. The system receives
the voice command “HELP” and do the following actions, such
as automatically enable GPS, location tracking, send the
location by SMS to the selected number, record audio voice for
15 seconds and save it to phone storage & cloud as well.
C. Sensor module
This module uses two sensors, such as the Compass sensor
and accelerometer sensor. The compass sensor detects the user
movement whether they are sitting and moving. It activates
during unwanted circumstances encountered by the victim and
sends the SMS to the selected number. Accelerometer sensor
detects the phone shaking. It activated when shaking the phone
three times and performed actions. The action can be such as
automatically enable GPS, location tracking, send the location
by SMS to the selected number, record audio voice for 15
seconds and save it to phone storage & cloud as well.
D. Spy module
This module uses a hidden camera service. User can be
taking a hidden image during unwanted circumstances. It
activated by pressing "START CAPTURE" button. Whenever
it is activated then do the following actions, e.g., capture hidden
image, save the image to cloud if the internet is available unless
it will save it to phone storage. Evidence is very important for
identifying the criminal. Evidence can be easily taken through
this module and can be restored later since the images are in the
store at the server.
E. Safety barometer
This module uses Google map API to complete tasks. The
main purpose of the safety barometer is to notify users about
the unsafe location. If the user enters into an unsafe area the
system automatically notifies to the user. Unknown people are
able to be aware of an unsafe area through this module.
III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
This section discusses three phases. The first phase
discusses the developed prototype, the second phase discusses
the performance of the system and the third phase discuss the
system testing.
A. User interfaces
Fig. 3 shows the prototype developed for the proposed
application. Fig. 3(a) is the home screen. Fig. 3(b) shows the
guidance for SOS button press. Fig. 3(c) shows the guidance for
voice command. Fig. 3(d) is for SOS homepage, where
emergency phone numbers are set and SOS key may manually
enter to send the current location to the selected numbers. Fig.
3(e) shows all the trusted number lists. Fig. 3(f) shows all the
features menu. Users can select any of the options to get help
during unwanted circumstances. Fig. 3(g) shows the headphone
integration setting screen to set headphone to keep active or not.
Fig. 3(h) shows the camera setting screen, where auto image
capture interval, enable night mode can be set. The captured
image is saved into a server (shown in Fig. 3(i)). Fig. 3(j) shows
the message received after shaking the phone during unwanted
circumstances. The message contains location link in google
map. Fig. 3(k) shows the output of the safety barometer, where
users neighbor unsafe locations are shown on the map.
Table III shows the efficiency of SOS and phone shaking
module. After pressing the SOS key and phone shaking the
emergency contact number receive a message. The time to
receive the messages is kept track from different distances (as
shown in Table III). Noted that the message received time may
differ on phone network availability. It is shown from Table 3,
the increasing distance may cause the message reception delay.
Another observation found that the average message reception
time for SOS is better than Phone shaking system.
B. System Usability Scale (SUS)
The System Usability Scale (SUS) [21] tool is used in this
system to get quick and reliable product usability measure. This
SUS tool consists of 10 questionnaires with five response
options (from strongly agree to strongly disagree) for
respondents. The developed application was shown to the user
for testing and get feedback through the SUS tool. The achieved
SUS score is 75.56, which indicates the system is good [21].
Fig. 4 shows the SUS result.
Fig. a Fig. b
Fig. c Fig. d
Fig. e Fig. f

Fig. j Fig. k

Fig 3: User Interface Design

TABLE III. PERFORMANCE TEST RESULT FOR SOS AND PHONE

SHAKING

System response

System response
time (Earphone
Experiment no

Distance (km)
SOS pressing)

Shaking) (ms)
time (Phone
(ms)
Fig. g Fig. h
1 33 639 1.3 km
2 42 750 1.2 km
3 74 1245 241.7 km
4 52 340 235.8 km
5 1342 734 190.4 km
6 1213 640 249.5 km
7 860 1213 286.4 km
8 945 670 3 km
9 210 834 170.5 km
10 330 745 160.3 km
Avg. 510.10 781.0

Fig. i
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