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Civil Rights Defenders, a Swedish rights group, hopes a bracelet with GPS will help protect workers who are at risk of assault or kidnapping
A Swedish rights group, Civil Rights Defenders, is hoping a high-tech bracelet equipped with a mobile phone signal and built in Global Positioning System (GPS), along with the power of social media, can protect rights activists on the frontline.
The bracelet works like an alarm, allowing rights workers to send a distress signal if they’re in danger or in the event of an assault or kidnapping. Alerts are activated when the wearer presses a button, sending a pre-written danger alert, or when it is removed by force, giving the location and time of an attack.
Brave people are risking their lives and wellbeing on a day-to-day basis and the bracelet provides them protection,” Robert Hardh, head of Civil Rights Defenders, told AlertNet in a telephone interview in Stockholm.
“It’s not foolproof of course, but it’s a complement to the other security protection measures and systems in place. The bracelet is just one cornerstone of all this.”
Earlier this month, Civil Rights Defenders handed out the first five bracelets to at-risk rights workers in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus region.
Providing enough money is raised, the group hopes to outfit another 50 rights workers with the bracelet by the end of 2014, with total running costs estimated at $315,000 a year, said Hardh.
The rights group came up with the idea to develop a tracking device following the kidnapping and murder of Chechen human rights activist Natalia Estemirova in 2009. The bracelet, known as the Natalia project, is named in honour of her.
It’s hoped the bracelet will allow people receiving the distress signal to act quickly and potentially save lives, Hardh said. The person wearing the bracelet selects five colleagues working nearby in the field to receive an alarm signal.
“There are several ways they can receive the alarm signal and have the possibility to find the person based on a GPS signal that gives a location. But for security reasons I can’t give more details,” Hardh said.
The alert is also picked up by Civil Rights Defenders staff working around the clock at the group's Stockholm headquarters, who then send the alert by email, SMS, Facebook and Twitter to people signed up to the Natalia project.
The hope is that immediate and widespread publicity about an attack on a human rights defender can put pressure on the attackers on behalf of those in trouble.
“The Natalia Project allows people to get involved and become part of a worldwide network to protect human rights defenders. Perhaps the most important part of the bracelet is that it allows people to act by making an alert known and spreading the message,” said Hardh.
“The entire world can be notified within minutes and be part of opinion making pressure on regimes.”
There are limits, though, about how much protection the bracelet can provide. In some parts of the world, mobile coverage remains spotty and the bracelet can only send, and not receive, signals.
Still, for the thousands of human rights activists working in the field across the world, the smart bracelet is a positive step to improve the much-needed protection they need.
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