Google appears to be developing a voice-activated Emergency SOS feature for Android, based on code found in its Personal Safety app. An animation suggests users could trigger an alert by saying “Help” three times, starting emergency calling, location sharing and video recording. The feature is not available yet and could still change or be dropped before release.

Google appears to be working on a voice-activated version of Emergency SOS for Android. Today, Emergency SOS is triggered by pressing the power button five times. The new option would let people start an alert without touching the phone. References to the feature turned up in the code of Google's Personal Safety app. It isn't available to users yet.

How it could work

An animation in the code suggests the feature would activate when a user says 'Help' three times in a row. It shows a location check, emergency video recording and emergency calling starting at that point. The animation looks likely to appear during setup, and strings in the code mention adding a hands-free way to start.

Voice commands would also handle confirmation. Users could say 'cancel' to dismiss the alert, and 'yes' to let it go ahead. The reports differ on exactly who is contacted: Android Authority, the first to spot this feature, says the feature sends an SOS and calls first responders.