Disclaimer: Safe Schools Initiative (SSI) is a customer of my company Hatch Apps. I believe in their mission to use software to save lives so thought I'd share the story with the HN community:<p>As a response to many of the recent school shootings, SSI is using a mobile app to address the growing nationwide epidemic. The app is a mobile-first community of students, parents, teachers, and law enforcement to crowdsource information and resources to prevent the next school shooting.<p>The thesis of the app is to prevent school shootings by combining software with existing initiatives— users of the app can report violence, speak to law enforcement via chat, and connect with each other real-time in groups.<p>The non-profit is currently working on a pilot with schools in Orange and Seminole County in Florida, as well as Baltimore City Public Schools.<p>The founder is Chris De Ruyter, an active duty Army Lieutenant Colonel stationed at FT. Meade, MD. He founded the 501(c)3 after watching the news of the Parkland shooting.<p>Would love to hear your thoughts on this solution and how we can use software / technology to prevent school shootings<p>iOS App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/safe-schools-initiative/id1450985074?ls=1&mt=8<p>Android App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hatchapps.core.ssi
My first thought was that the leap from "this app is useful to students" to "prevent school shootings" is huge and this just sounds naive and exaggerated. Then I noticed that the word "shooting" is nowhere in the app descriptions but you decided to include it in your post for some reason.
I don’t like the idea of combining law enforcement, suicide and anti-bullying under such a mediocre privacy policy. I would absolutely never install it and when my daughter is in school, I would heavily fight any effort to introduce this to her school system.