Child-tracking bracelets tested in UAE

A bracelet designed to track children and facilitate help in case of emergencies has been designed and created as part of a testing phase, the Ministry of Interior said on Sunday.

 According to a report in Gulf News, in a bid to complement their Hemayati (my protection) smartphone application that allows parents to keep track of their young ones, work on the bracelet first began in 2013.

 Lieutenant Colonel Faisal Mohammad Al Shammari, director of the Ministry’s Child Protection Centre, said the project aims to protect children between the ages of four to 16.

 The smartphone app has over 30,000 users and it uses geomechanics to allow parents to locate their children. In addition to this technology, the bracelet can also measure the wearer’s pulse to better understand the environment surrounding them and can also detect whether the bracelet was forcefully removed, Al Shammari revealed.

 The device can also allow children to call for help by pressing a single button during emergencies, sending an alert for their parents to respond immediately. This can prove useful in public locations such as shopping malls.

 If used in schools, the device can also encourage safety and protection against any hurdles that children may face when in these facilities. The bracelet also limits a youngster’s use of smartphones which parents often use to communicate with their child.

 The Hemayati mobile application requires parents to register using their national ID and to later link the account to their children’s mobile phones.