An addition to the ping4alerts! app allows users to view where sex offenders live. It’s the latest offering from Ping4 Inc., a mobile communications company in Nashua.
A map with red pins identifies the residence of area sex offenders from the state’s sex offender registry. A click on a pin brings up the registry profile including a picture, name, address and details of the offense.
Currently the free app for Apple and Android has data for Florida, NH, NJ and Massachusetts but is adding more states weekly. Ping4alerts! is chiefly marketed to the public safety market to disseminate emergency alerts and other information to the public directly through smartphones.
“This is important for parents to keep their children safe. If you have a child going to preschool, you want to know if someone who has been convicted as a sex offender is living near the school,” says James C. Bender, CEO and executive director.
The app was originally developed in 2011 to help businesses, particularly retailers, deliver content to mobile phone users in a particular area, such as special deals. The company then discovered its app was a strong match for the public safety market, which it entered in 2012. Since then, it has been selling its app to state, county and municipal emergency management agencies.
The app has been downloaded for free by over 100,000 users nationwide. Massachusetts used the app during Hurricane Sandy to send alerts during the storm. It was also used during the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers to advise citizens to shelter in place.
“We’ve created an app to provide important information to help keep you safe wherever you go,” Bender says.
Ping4, which now has 20 employees, has a pilot program in Florida to deliver emergency information and has responded to a Request For Proposal from the state of NH to provide emergency notification services here.
Ping4 charges government entities 8 cents per citizen per year to send notifications, 16 cents per citizen for a three-year contract or 24 cents for a five-year contract. The app can also be branded for the government entity using it.
The next step is adding information such as historical crime data and predictive crime data to deliver location-based public safety content to keep users aware of their surroundings. Ping4 is also looking at ways to let users listen to police scanner activity on their phones. Bender says the company hopes to roll out those updates by the end of the year.
For more information, visit ping4.com.
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