How it works
Before anything goes wrong
You sign up with an email address, confirm it, then add your mobile number and choose a PIN. We text you a code to prove the number is really yours — if it were wrong, you would not find out until the day it mattered.
Then you add the people you would actually ring in trouble, and write the messages you might want to send. Writing them in advance matters: nobody composes a good message while panicking on a stranger's phone.
Code words
Every person on your list gets their own code word. We can text them now to say they are on your list and tell them the word to expect. That is what stops the real message being dismissed as a scam months later.
The code word is never shown on the emergency screens. A borrowed phone must not be able to learn it.
On the day
Borrow any phone or computer. Go to /help and sign in with your mobile number and your PIN.
You will see a list of first names — nothing else. No phone numbers, no surnames, no code words. Choose a person, choose a message, and we send it. You cannot see anything, change anything, or add anyone. Sending is the only thing that account can do.
Nothing is left on the borrowed device: the session ends when the browser closes, pages are never cached, and finishing clears what we can.
Messages can carry your location
If the message you choose asks for it, your browser will offer to share where you are. The recipient gets a Plus Code and coordinates they can put straight into a map. If you refuse, or the browser cannot work it out, the message still goes.
Why you might not be believed, and what we do about it
An unexpected plea for help, from a number nobody recognises, naming a service they have never heard of, reads exactly like a scam. Three things work against that: the heads-up text sent in advance, the code word only you and they know, and a reference on every message that anyone can check on this site.