Questions
The questions we are asked most about the SOS button, your privacy and your account. If yours is not here, do email us.
Does VeiligSamen replace the emergency number?
No. In an emergency always call 112 first. VeiligSamen alerts neighbours nearby who have the app — people who can be there within a few minutes — but it is not an emergency service and there is no control room behind it. Think of it as calling out to your neighbour, not as calling the police. The app has a button to call 112: while your alert is being sent, on the screen of your running alert, and on the screens your neighbours see. So you never have to navigate away first.
How close does someone have to be?
Within 500 metres to begin with. Neighbours with the app who have been in that area in the last 30 minutes are alerted, with the distance to you and a pin on the map. If nobody offers to come, that circle grows by 500 metres every minute and a half, up to 2 kilometres; only the neighbours in the new ring are alerted then. As soon as someone offers, the widening stops. The distance is measured as the crow flies, not along the walking route.
What if my location is switched off?
Then you cannot send an SOS. The button is disabled and the app says why: your location is the one thing the alert has to tell anyone — without it nobody knows where you are. Alerts from neighbours will not reach you either, because the app cannot tell whether you were nearby. You turn it on in your phone's settings; the app takes you there in one tap. If permission is on but your phone has not fixed a position yet, the screen says so rather than showing you an empty map.
Does it work when the app is closed?
Receiving alerts works as long as you have opened the app in the last 30 minutes; after that your presence expires and you are no longer counted as a neighbour nearby. There are two ways around that, both under Menu → Reachability. You can add a fixed address — your home, say, with the days and times you are usually there — and you are alerted there even with the app closed for days; that costs no battery and shares no live location. Or you can switch on letting the app report your location in the background; that is off by default and your phone asks you for a separate permission. You send an SOS with the app open; after that your position keeps being refreshed for as long as the alert is running, in the background too.
Someone is behaving badly. What can I do?
Two things, and they are separate. Hold a message down and choose "Report": you pick a reason, can add something yourself, and a person reads it and responds within a few days. Or choose "Block": from then on neither of you receives the other's SOS alerts and neither of you can offer to help the other. That second one is deliberately far-reaching — it makes the group of neighbours who can reach you smaller — and you can always undo it under Blocked people in the menu. If there is immediate danger, call 112.
Do neighbours see my name?
Not by default. Neighbours who receive your alert see only the distance to you and the place on the map — no name, no email address. If someone offers to come and help, you decide whether to accept them; only then do you see each other's names, so you know who is arriving. If you decline someone, nothing changes. Your email address is never shared, and there is no membership list where you can look up who takes part near you.
Does the app use much battery?
Hardly any at rest. By default the app does not run in the background and does not track your location; it only fixes your position while you have it open. Two exceptions, both visible: while your own alert is running the app refreshes your location precisely — at most once every ten seconds, and only after you have moved fifteen metres — and if you switch on staying reachable with the app closed under Reachability, it reports your position now and then at the same coarse accuracy as ordinary presence. On Android you see a notification in both cases saying your location is being shared. A fixed address costs no battery at all.
How do I stop an SOS?
Press "I am safe" on the screen of your active alert. Neighbours who received it then see that it is over. If you do nothing, the app asks after half an hour whether you are safe. Answer "no, not yet" and the alert continues. If no answer comes at all, we do not assume everything is fine: your neighbours are told that nothing more has been heard from you, so somebody can go and look. After two hours at most the alert closes, saying that no confirmation came.
Can I have several alerts at once?
You can have one alert of your own running at a time. Once it is finished, cancelled or closed without confirmation, you may send another straight away — an alarm you break off and then genuinely need a minute later is the ordinary case, not abuse. Only at a third alert within ten minutes does the app ask you to wait, and it says beforehand how long, instead of letting you find out once you are already holding the button down. Other people's alerts you can see all at once: running ones are on the home screen, and under Alerts you find everything you were part of — what you sent, what you received nearby and where you helped.
What happens to an alert once it is over?
It leaves the home screen and moves to Alerts, with what happened: who received it, who helped and how it ended. If there was a conversation with a neighbour who came to help, you can still read it back there. Writing is no longer possible once the alert has ended. Messages stay for 90 days and then go; a record of what happened is kept for a year. If you want to keep it, send yourself a copy: you get the conversation and the summary by email, at your account's address. Rather leave it with us? As the person who raised the alert you can ask for it to be kept.
I no longer use the app on an old phone. What now?
Go to Menu → Devices. Every device you are signed in on is listed there, with when it was last seen. Remove the one you no longer use: it is signed out, stops receiving alerts and disappears from your list. Your account and your other phones go on working — so you do not have to delete your whole account just to get rid of an old handset. If you lose a phone, do this straight away.
How do I delete my account?
In the app via Menu → Delete account, or on the website if you can no longer sign in. Your account is disabled at once and after 90 days your data is deleted for good. If you sign in again within those 90 days, you can re-enable your account.
Which languages is the app available in?
Dutch and English, each with a choice of country: the Netherlands or Belgium, the United Kingdom or the United States. The app follows your phone's language and you can change it yourself under Menu → Language, where the countries sit under their language. The text comes from our server, so an improved translation is there immediately — you do not need to install an update for it. This website is available in Dutch and English; the switcher is at the bottom of every page.
Does an SOS come through when my phone is on silent?
On Android yes, if you switch it on. Under Menu → Permissions you let the app through Do Not Disturb; after that an SOS from your neighbourhood sounds even when your phone is on silent. On iPhone an SOS gets through a Focus mode — including Sleep Focus at night — but not yet past the silent switch; we are working on that. Either way it applies to a real SOS and nothing else: messages from a conversation and every other notification stay quiet, and you can switch it off again at any time in your phone's settings.
Who may respond to an alert?
Neighbours who have confirmed both their email address and their phone number. An offer to help shares your position with someone you do not know, and then your name, so we want to know a real person is behind it. Raising an alert needs neither: someone in trouble is the last person who should meet a hurdle.
Question not answered here?
Email us and we will help you work it out. We usually reply within two working days.