News

Nokia Mobile Devices Lock Onto GPS Security

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 01/26/09

Nokia and Securitas announced that they'll be cooperating on plans to enhance GPS-related security services in Nokia mobile devices, at least for the European market.

The service, called Securitas Safe-2-Go, will provide help in an exposed situation, but also gives increased security through information regarding the location of friends and family. Securitas Safe-2-Go initially contains four services:

• Assist, which will connect the user to a Securitas alarm central, which has information about who is connecting, where this person is located, and which people related to the person need to be contacted
• Find, which provides the current position of designated friends.
• Zone, which allows the user to receive an SMS if someone leaves or comes into a predefined area, such as a school or home.
• Friends, which gives an overview of where all specified friends are located.

The service will be launched commercially starting in the first half of 2009, first in Sweden, and then in other countries within Europe. The companies haven't announced pricing. Since the service is initially intended to work only on GPS-enabled Symbian S60 devices. There's no word on when comparable services will be available for GPS-enabled Nokia phones in the United States.