A Brisbane company has developed a crisis response system that has already sparked the interest of one US defence contractor.

The phone-based system, dubbed Space Guard, identifies when subscribers are in trouble and automatically activates a pre-arranged response.

Georgie Chumbley reports.

TRANSCRIPT

This is what happens at Indigo Telecom headquarters in Brisbane, when a Space Guard subscriber is in trouble anywhere around the world.

The automated response system can track up to 100,000 people, with the capacity to expand and track millions.

In a crisis it can be activated manually, or when a subscriber ventures outside a designated electronic area called a Geo Fence.

David Ruddiman, Indigo Telecom CEO: “It’s an automated crisis response management service, that uses an incredible tracking technology to provide the underlying connectivity that allows us to track people and respond to particular alerts and alarms raised by those individuals wherever they be in the world.”

The company says the system would be useful for media organisations and others who have to operate in disaster and conflict zones.

David Ruddiman, Indigo Telecom CEO: “We have a prime defence contractor in the United States who’s taken the software on board. They’ve around about 150,000 personnel scattered around the world and they’re going to be using this with their own people.”

Although it has the capacity, Indigo Telecom has no short term intentions of catering to the market of mums and dads, so parents wanting to keep track of their kids will just have to wait.

But the service to parents may become available in the future.

Georgie Chumbley, QUT News.