A growing industry is promising to make Britain’s streets safer – but critics warn selling security risks letting the real culprits off the hook

Picture the scene. A woman is walking home at night, steps quickening as she nervously glances over her shoulder. The only thing that reassures her is the phone she clasps in her hand.

For many, such a scenario requires little imagination. According to a 2025 YouGov poll, nearly nine in ten women in the UK say they feel unsafe walking alone at night.

Behind that alarming statistic lies a rapidly growing industry: apps, wearables and GPS systems designed to reduce risk and reassure users that are increasingly attracting significant investment. 

According to government analysis published in April, the UK safety tech sector consists of 145 companies, nearly tripling in size since 2019. Globally, the women’s safety software market is projected to more than double in value from £750m in 2026 to £1.78bn by 2035. 

WalkSafe is one of the UK’s most widely-used safety apps with more than 700,000 downloads. Originally launched as a free consumer tool, the company now offers a business-facing model, selling services to employers, venues and local authorities. 

Founder Emma Kay’s route into the industry is rooted in personal experience. The company began as a “family-born passion project” shaped by her own experience of domestic abuse. “I understand what it feels like to be unsafe both inside and outside the home,” she says. 

“I understand what it feels like to be unsafe both inside and outside the home”

Users can share live journeys or trigger an SOS alert to trusted contacts for free. Through its paid “Pro” platform, sold as a subscription to employers and institutions, alerts are routed to a 24/7 security hub staffed by trained professionals.

“They can see the person’s location on a map and follow an escalation process,” Kay explains. “Most of the time, the outcome is that the person who triggered the SOS receives a call and if they don’t pick up, a security professional contacts their next of kin.”

WalkSafe’s partnerships include the Royal Albert Hall and Genting Casinos, with businesses now among the fastest-growing customers of safety tech. “Some businesses simply want the reassurance that someone will respond to an alert,” Kay says. “Others are dealing with specific issues such as internal stalking cases or domestic abuse situations involving employees.”

Around 75 per cent of WalkSafe users are women. The app was created before the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer in 2021, but Kay says that tragedy made it clear how widespread fear already was. “We didn’t fully realise the scale of how unsafe women felt,” she adds. 

After Everard’s death, the women’s safety tech sector became far more competitive. “We found a lot of men trying to profit from women’s safety,” Kay says. “Considering what we’re all trying to achieve, it became quite a competitive landscape.”

“We found a lot of men trying to profit from women’s safety”

That competition has been driven by a sharp rise in demand, both from individuals and organisations treating safety as a core business issue. For employers, safety tools are increasingly tied to staff retention, liability management and brand reputation. At a government level, they form part of a wider public safety strategy that has seen £626m committed to safer street infrastructure in England and £5m for night-time safety initiatives.

Yet critics argue that framing safety as a product risks shifting responsibility away from institutions and onto individuals. 

Laura Montecchio, a lecturer in Media, Gender and Culture at King’s College London, believes the balance is currently the wrong way round. “Technology should follow institutional frameworks, not lead them,” she says. “It ought to be an institutional-level issue first rather than the other way around.”

She argues that the growth of safety tech reflects a broader pattern in capitalist societies, where systemic problems are reframed as matters of individual responsibility. “It is easier to place blame on individuals than to confront structural failures,” she said. “The same logic applies when it comes to women’s safety and technology.”

Morag Rose, a writer and academic whose work focuses on women walking and public space, warns that certain technologies can reinforce fear rather than reduce harm. “I can absolutely see the value in things like walking-home apps,” she says. “But these technologies don’t tackle the bigger issues around culture and access.”

Rose also questions the commercial incentives underpinning the sector: “We need to ask who profits from women’s fear. There’s a wider question about commodifying safety and the effects of constant self-surveillance.”

Kay acknowledges these limitations: “We know we’re not the full solution, but we hope we can play a small part in pushing businesses and public institutions to do more.”

Safety technology alone cannot solve violence against women. Experts argue that lasting change requires a combination of better-designed public spaces, stronger institutional accountability and cultural shifts that challenge the root causes of gender-based violence. 

Rose points to environmental measures that do not rely on fear, such as livelier spaces, better lighting and community-led initiatives. Montecchio calls for genuine engagement with academic research and gender expertise in policy-making. “Positions of power still lack adequate female representation,” she says. “That needs to change.”

But for now, for the millions of women navigating daily life, these tools make their walk home feel just that little bit safer.

Featured Image Credit: Catherine Rowe-Kosary