Submitted by Mike Grenville on Mon, 05 Jul 2004 15:32

Four years after Lucie Blackman dissapeared and was murdered in Japan, her father has launched a clever service that anyone can use to alert friends and family where you are if you run into trouble called Safetytext

The simple idea of Saftety Text is to make it easy to store details of where you are going that can be accessed if things go wrong.

To use the service you send an SMS with your plans and set a time delay of between 30 minutes and 24 hours for an alarm to be triggered automatically to alert friends or family in the event that something happens to you.

The Safetytext service stores photographs, contact details and the names of friends and relatives, which can be released to the police in the event of the customer disappearing.

If the you get home safely or to somewhere you feel safe, before the alarm text is sent, a simple text message cancels it. Just in case you forget to cancel it, a reminder SMS is sent to you 30 minutes before their alarm message is due to be sent.

The idea for Safety Text came to Lucie's father, Tim Blackman, in the days and months the family spent looking for his daughter after she dissapeared. " Being involved in the real life drama of searching for Lucie, it became apparent how desperate it is when there’s not enough information to help find missing people" said Blackman.

"We've worked on it for quite a long time - the idea of being able to send a text and actually control whether it is delivered is a simple and clever idea." "Initially we thought of a delayed emailing system" said Tim Blackman, "but over a couple of pints realised how simple it would be to send a text and pin number."

"The idea is gaining critical mass and we hope it will fill that gap between parents and children" said Blackman. "When children start to use SafetyText, they start thinking ahead of the dangers they might face by what they are doing. It starts them thinking about telling someone the truth about what they are doing. Parents can provide this new responsibility without seeming to interfere, but it shows too that as parents we care."

Looking uncanniliy like her sister Lucie, Sophie Blackman speaking at the launch said that "looking for Lucie were the most harrowing time for the whole family. Lucie's life was not taken in vain - she always wanted to help people and so we hope this launch will be credited to her."

There are two payment options - 50p a go using Premium Rate SMS but can also be set up with credit card registration. That way parents can pay for their kids with a recurring fee so parents can be sure that they won't run out of credit. Using this method costs £5 for 15 messages. As well as using a short code - 63344, a full UK number - +44 77814 806 33 - can be used making the service available to business people and holiday makers while abroad. Likewise gap year students can also take advantage of the service.

As well as the delay service, the service can also be used to trigger an instant alert by just texting 'hi' if you are in real danger.

Developer of the service Tony Coyne, MD of SendMyText, said "I meet many potential clients with big ideas and I'm pleased that this dream has been turned into reality."

"Ease of use is key to using the service regularly" said Coyne. "With one simple text it's done and another to cancel".

Safety Text plans to expand the service to Australia and USA later this year. Blackman said that Safety Text is "looking for partners to take the service forward - for example we are talking to Virgin Mobile."

Virgin Mobile's Chris Burret, Marketing Mannager Wholesale Value Added Services was at the launch to demonstrate the operator's support for the service. "It's a different angle to Ringtones and logos that customers are used to and we want to get more involved with services like this" said Burret.

Burrett said that he hoped other mobile networks will also support Safety Text. "As much as would like exclusive, we see it as good customer service to offer this kind of facility. It's more important to get the service across than have it Virgin Mobile branded" he said.

Safefytext is one of those really bright ideas that shows what can be done with mobile messaging services. I will certainly be signing up my kids and myself to the service.

www.safetytext.com