FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rising Violence and Missing-Person Cases Highlight Australia's Location Gap in Emergency Response

WanderSafe's free app helps users share precise location data when every second counts.

SYDNEY, 2 September 2026 — Australia's personal safety indicators are moving in the wrong direction. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show an estimated 8 million Australians — 41 per cent of the population — have experienced violence since the age of 15, while sexual assault victims rose 11 per cent to 33,403 in the latest reporting year. The Australian Institute of Criminology recorded 448 homicide victims in 2024, up 9 per cent on the previous year. The National Missing Persons Coordination Centre also continues to manage active cases across cities, regional areas and remote bushland.

Behind these figures is a common operational problem: when someone is in danger, lost or unable to call for help, responders often have incomplete or imprecise location information. Many personal-safety incidents are opportunistic, occurring when someone is isolated, disoriented or unable to quickly share exactly where they are. In regional, coastal and bushland settings, a street address or vague description can cost first responders critical time.

WanderSafe, an Australian-owned personal safety technology company founded in 2016, says closing this gap does not require a new emergency system; it requires more accurate location data reaching the right people faster. The company's free smartphone app is designed to locate a user within three metres in seconds, using the global grid-based location standard what3words, then send that information to emergency contacts and, where connected, workplace or institutional safety teams.

"GPS pins and street addresses were not built for the moments people most need help — on a hiking trail, in a car park or along a stretch of coastline without a street number," said Stephenie Rodriguez, Founder at WanderSafe. "The technology to close that gap already exists. Our focus is putting it in as many hands as possible, for free, before it is needed — not after."

Canberra-based WanderSafe Founder Fiona O'Donnell added: "With violent crime rising and more people becoming unreachable in bushland, we want to equip and empower as many people as possible to take control of their personal safety and wellbeing."

A Four-Layer Approach to Prevention and Response

WanderSafe's S.A.F.E. framework is designed to support people and organisations across four stages of a safety incident:

• Situational Awareness: reducing risk before an incident occurs.
• Active Response: helping users act the moment they feel unsafe.
• Frictionless Escalation: routing accurate location information to the right responders quickly and using JENI to help confirm SOS activations are genuine.
• Enterprise Visibility: giving organisations a record of duty-of-care actions taken.

The WanderSafe app includes JENI, a proprietary AI layer and personal safety concierge that provides real-time threat and natural-disaster alerts, safety tips and location safety scores based on time of day. The app is free to the public, with an enterprise offering for schools, universities, businesses and events that need first-response technology, geofencing and compliance-ready duty-of-care reporting.

WanderSafe's founders and product leaders are available for interview and can provide a live demonstration of the location and escalation technology on request.

About WanderSafe

WanderSafe is a personal safety technology company offering an integrated safety ecosystem that includes the award-winning WanderSafe Beacon, a non-violent deterrent device with CIA-grade tools designed to help prevent crimes of opportunity, a free mobile app, and real-time intelligence tools. Its solutions are built to reduce risk, speed emergency and first-response efforts, and give organisations clearer visibility into their duty-of-care obligations. WanderSafe serves three key areas: Campus for universities, Workforce for workplaces and corporations, and Travel for organisations with deployed personnel, including NGOs and diplomatic missions.

Media Contacts

Stephenie Rodriguez | WanderSafe Founder | 0416 08 9000 | [email protected]

Fiona O'Donnell | WanderSafe Founder | 0420 460 605 | [email protected]

Notes to editors — sources

• Family and domestic violence data: AIHW — Family, domestic and sexual violence summary
• Domestic homicide data: AIHW — Domestic homicide
• National homicide data: Australian Institute of Criminology — Latest national homicide data
• Missing persons data: National Missing Persons Coordination Centre — 2025 Missing Persons Data
• Bushwalker search-and-rescue volume: The Stages of Search and Rescue in Australia — trailhiking.com.au
• Sexual assault victim-survivor data: ABC News — Recorded sexual assault victim-survivors surpass 40,000 nationwide
• Children and young people data: AIHW — Children and young people
• WanderSafe product features and claims: wandersafe.com

All statistics current as of the search dates noted in this briefing (September 2026) and should be re-verified against source immediately before publication, as these figures update periodically.