In safe hands

The council worker knew it could be risky trying to get rent off this particular family, having had problems with them before. So he rang a special number using his mobile, reported his location and set an alarm to text him in 10 minutes and prompt him to enter a pin if he was safe.

Moments later, his fears were realised when a woman grabbed a carving knife and attacked him. He immediately pressed a special "panic button" number on his mobile and ran out of the flat, the woman in pursuit. As she chased him, he activated an autorecord service on his phone.

Moment later, the police were able to make an arrest having been notified of the situation, and listened in to the chase. The recording was used later as circumstantial evidence in a successful prosecution.

The personal security mobile service behind this real life incident, Guardian 24, is the product of Belfast and Dublin-based Bluechip Technologies, a startup that began life in the gaming and voice recognition industries.

It now provides a clever mobile security service to "at-risk" workers, business users such as high-level executives and key-holding managers at risk of kidnapping, and to personal users.

"Guardian is just like an alarm system for a house - but it is for a person. It effectively does the alarm management for a mobile workforce," says Henry Woods, chairman of Bluechip and the former chief executive of telecommunications company Softech (now Soft-ex).

With the rise of kidnapping and ransom (known as K&R) incidents, especially so-called "tiger kidnappings" of those who hold keys to workplaces where large amounts of money are stored, Guardian 24 has drawn much attention from security services and financial services, as well as high income executives.

But potential markets include parents concerned about child safety, and dating services.

The fully automated system is offered as a monthly service at £10, or on longer-term business contracts, and has two different levels of operation.

Registered users can dial a recording service to explain where they are and where they are going and prompt the service to demand they disarm it with a pin at a set time.

If they don't enter the pin, the system tries to ring or text them again. If they still don't respond, it automatically notifies between three and 10 designated people that the user may be at risk.

Alternatively, the user can press a designated panic button key - usually the digit five - to trigger the same notification to go out, immediately. They can also press a button to start an automatic recording that can be streamed live to a security service or police.

Calls generally go to managers or specific co-workers, or sometimes a security service. In the case of the personal service, the calls will be routed through to designated friends or family. Calls do not go directly to the police, but once a designated contact is notified and believes there's a problem, they can ring the police, Woods says.

The information the person filed on location or journey can be retrieved from the service by the contacts, but only if the emergency contacts have been notified (ie an "incident" is under way).

Woods says the beauty of the system is that privacy is never compromised. No human takes the call and the information and the designated emergency contacts cannot retrieve information unless an emergency is under way.

Guardian 24 now has 20,000 users, 95 per cent of them business users, primarily in Britain and Ireland. Group 4 Security uses it, and in Britain Bluechip has contracts with several government offices such as councils, as well as backing from the major union Unison and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which focuses on worker safety.

Woods explains that the product evolved from a request to the company by a council in Britain for a voice-recognition safety system. Interest and use have grown to the point where Bluechip has made Guardian 24 its sole product.

"The initial users of the system were government employees who worked on their own. New customers on the business side are high-risk senior management in financial services, security, technology and energy.

Woods says one of the big drivers is K&R. Ireland has suffered a spate of such incidents, which can be extremely brutal and stressful, he adds.

Criminals typically enter the home and cut all phone lines and confiscate mobiles. Families are often stripped, then bound and gagged while the keyholder is driven to the workplace to obtain cash.

With Guardian 24, if the keyholder doesn't have time to hit the panic button, an incident will still be reported when the system tries to call and ask for the pin at a designated time. In addition, in a development worthy of Ian Fleming's Q, Woods says there are other objects in which a transmitter, mobile or panic button can be hidden in at-risk households, for extra safety.

To date the system has helped bring aid to an epileptic housing officer, to a surveyor who fell down a crevice, broke his leg and passed out, and to a healthcare worker attacked by an aggressive patient.

Woods says the company has just completed roaming arrangements that will allow Guardian to operate internationally - for example, to protect an oil company employee travelling in the Middle East.

New markets include launching a bundled service for families. This would provide privacy and safety for children and teens who often do not want to carry a device they know is tracking them, Woods says. With Guardian 24, a teenager could set an alarm before taking a Dart or taxi journey alone and the information on where she was would only be given to parents if she failed to enter her pin, or if she hit the panic button. There is no way to retrieve records directly from Guardian 24 otherwise.

Woods says the company is also approaching online dating services to offer the service, perhaps as part of a membership fee.

While Bluechip received two initial injections of venture investment, Woods says the company is funding itself entirely from revenue as it prepares for further expansion.

More than two million individuals are keyholders in Britain, he says, and initial research indicates there are about 120 million families in Britain. Add to that the popularity of online dating and general concerns about crime and personal safety and new EU legislation that stipulates companies may be liable if they fail to protect at-risk workers adequately.

"We want to get a foothold in a number of markets we're not in yet," Woods says.