IT major Microsoft on Thursday launched a safety app called ‘Guardian’ for women, which allows the friends and family to track them in real-time using the 'track me' feature. The app is available exclusively for Windows Phone users in India

The company said that growing incidents of crimes against women, particularly the Nirbhaya case happened in December last year prompted it to develop this app.

The people can use Guardian by pressing 'SOS' alert button and also connect to security agencies, police and hospitals easily via this app in times of distress.

For people wanting to use Guardian effectively, the names of friends, family members and security groups should be added to the settings. They can be alerted in an emergency situation.

One this is done the phone then sends a distress SMS to all buddy mobiles, notifying them of the emergency along with location details. At the same time the SOS button also sends emails to buddy email IDs and posts to private Facebook groups, if registered, Microsoft said.

The phone can be traced even if it is broken. The application is capable of one touch video recording that may be used later as evidence.

The company’s employees made this happen by using their spare time in developing this app.  The app was developed in six months.

Microsoft IT India Managing Director Raj Biyani said that it is a robust personal security app with more safety features and capabilities than any other comparable app available to Indian smartphone users today.

Biyani said that it was developed in Microsoft Garage, a global employee innovation initiative which offers opportunities to the employees to explore new innovations and ideas.