SMU presents a new safety app called LiveSafe for students, faculty, and staff to access safety resources with the click of a button.

Leigh Ann Moffett, Director of the Office of Risk Management, said the timing worked out well for Risk Management and Student Senate to work together on this project.

“Risk Management has been evaluating a few safety apps, and during the same timeline, SMU Student Senate was seeking a goal to implement safety for students on campus,” Moffett said.

Risk Management invited Student Senate to work alongside them to find a well-functioned safety app that is fast, effective, and easy for the users of the app.

Prior to LiveSafe, Risk Management and Student Senate evaluated multiple application demos in hopes of finding the best fit for the community’s safety. Coincidentally, “LiveSafe was supported by a resolution a student passed last year,” Moffett said. Here’s why: LiveSafe provides a new way for people to report items of concern or suspicious activities to Risk Management or the SMU Police Department. LiveSafe also permits students, faculty, and staff to message SMU police dispatchers without having to make a phone call and acts as an interface with SMU dispatch. “It connects the user directly with our police department,” says Carr.

SMU Student Senate sent more information about the app in an email this week:

This easy-to-use mobile platform adds another important resource that students, faculty and staff can use to help keep SMU a safe learning and living environment.

You can think of the safety app as a mobile blue light emergency phone that fits in your pocket. If you see something suspicious, you can submit non-emergency tips or incidents to SMU Police over the phone or through direct messaging with pictures or video. The safety app can also be used to request help, locate safety resources on campus, and even invite friends or family to join you on a virtual “safe walk.”

LiveSafe allows users to silently make an emergency phone call or report without having to draw attention to themselves. In cases where you don’t have access to your phone during an emergency and dispatch needs to find you, LiveSafe will alert the SMU PD’s dashboard, as long as you have your location shared, Officer Jesse Carr said. “Ultimately we want to provide a resource to the community; particularly to the students,” says Moffett.

The app includes the following features:

• Reporting Suspicious Activities anonymously using messages, videos and photos.
• Rapid Emergency Contact: “Call SMU Police, Message Security, Call 911”
• Non-Emergency Reports/Tips
• SafeWalk: invite someone from your contacts to monitor your location and time to get from destination A-to-B.
• Access to SMU’s COVID-19 Information and Resources
• Blood Control, AEDs, SMU Police, TapRide, Emergency Notifications & Procedures, Shuttle Pickup Locations, etc.

Dispatch has a visual and auditory view of LiveSafe similar to how they would monitor calls to 911. Before calling the SMU police department directly, LiveSafe prompts a second, “are you sure want to call” option to users. As soon as a user hits “call SMU police”, LiveSafe alerts SMU dispatch immediately.

For more information on LiveSafe visit the official website.