Under Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz’s “Safe Punjab Vision,” the Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) has rolled out a very modern – and very personal – security feature: your mobile phone camera can now act like a Safe City camera during emergencies.
How Your Phone Connects to Safe City
The new feature, called “Connect to PSCA,” has been added to the existing Safe City public safety app. Instead of only relying on fixed CCTV cameras, the system can now tap into what a citizen is seeing in real time.
Here’s how it works in an emergency:
1. You dial helpline 15 to report a serious incident – such as a robbery, accident, fire, or violence.
2. The Safe City officer on the other end assesses the situation and sends you a secure live-feed link to your phone.
Read more: 3,187 new Safe City cameras to be installed to cover 90% area of Islamabad
3. Once you open the link, your phone’s camera turns into a live stream for the Safe City control room.
4. Officers can then see what’s happening on the ground in real time and coordinate a quicker, more accurate response.
This means that instead of just explaining the situation over the phone, you can show it live – whether it’s a suspect fleeing, a vehicle number plate, injured people needing medical help, or a developing law-and-order issue.
Why This Matters for Public Safety
The PSCA says this feature is meant to strengthen emergency response across Punjab, especially in places where there may be no nearby CCTV camera coverage. With citizens’ help, the control room can:
• Verify incidents instantly instead of depending only on verbal descriptions.
• Dispatch police, Rescue 1122, or other services faster and with better situational awareness.
• Reduce false alarms or confusion by watching the scene directly.
It also gives ordinary people a sense of active participation in public safety — not just as bystanders, but as partners.
Read more: Safe city cameras will be installed in 19 cities of Punjab by June 2025
Rules, Privacy & Responsible Use prescribed by the safe city authority
As per the Safe Cities Authority spokesperson, this service is strictly for emergency situations, not casual use or routine streaming. Citizens are being advised to:
• Keep location services enabled on their phones, so their exact position can be traced in an emergency.
• Avoid sending unnecessary or irrelevant videos, which could overload the system and distract from genuine crises.
• Only use the feature when instructed by Safe City during a call to 15.
The feature strongly depicts a broader trend in smart policing: using technology and citizen cooperation to create safer, more responsive cities — while reminding people that with greater connectivity also comes greater responsibility to use it wisely.