How does the SOS button work?

The round red button on the map sends an alert, with your position, to the members of all your circles, except the circles you excluded from your SOS alerts in their settings. After a ten-second countdown, which you can cancel with a swipe, the alert goes out and their phones ring, loudly and repeatedly, until an adult of the circle takes charge.

What happens next, in order:

1. Your people are alerted and follow your position live on the map, even if your sharing was off.
2. A guardian or an adult taps “I’m on it”: the ringing stops for everyone and you see who is looking after you.
3. If nobody has seen the alert after two minutes, Fenzly sends an SMS to every member with a verified number. The SMS says your position is in the app; it never contains the position itself. Your screen then offers to call someone close or the emergency services.

Your position during the alert. It keeps reaching the alerted members as you move, and they see “Live position” on the alert. It works in the background, even with the app closed, and it goes through everything that would otherwise hide you: Position sharing switched off, a circle set to “Off”, Geolocation switched off. It stops by itself when you cancel the alert, 30 minutes after someone takes charge, or 4 hours after the alert if nobody ever does. Apart from cancelling the alert, nobody can stop it sooner, a child no more than an adult.

A false alarm is cancelled from the alert screen: members are told. With no network, the app says so plainly, puts calling first, and keeps the alert queued to send it as soon as the connection is back. If Offline mode was on, sending the alert turns it off, and it stays off afterwards: switch it back on by hand if you want.

Your position stays end-to-end encrypted, live sharing included: the server knows an alert happened, when, who was alerted and who took charge, never where you are. The SOS button does not replace the emergency services: in immediate danger, call first. The guide Using the SOS button covers the setup and the receiving side.