User guide
Welcome
App-Elles is a free mobile app for victims and witnesses of gender-based and sexual violence. It gives you a way to quickly alert your loved ones, call emergency services, connect with support organisations, and access all available information for a given area.
The purpose of this guide is to introduce the features of the App-Elles app and walk you through configuring and using them.
Settings
Permissions
To ensure the app and its alert service work properly, you are invited to grant all the permissions requested. These permissions can be revoked at any time but doing so will limit the app's functionality and access to the alert service.
Tip
These permissions are required for the alert service (receiving alert notifications, real-time location, microphone listening and recording, etc.), so it is recommended to grant them permanently so that you are not prompted again during an emergency. Access to your location and microphone is only possible once you trigger an alert and ends when you stop it.
Your account
An email address and a password are required to create your account and access the app's resources and services. This account lets you connect to other users, save your alert data, and restore your settings on any other App-Elles app (in case of phone change, theft or destruction).
To verify that you are the owner of the email address you provided, a confirmation link is sent to that address. Without your confirmation, you will not be able to invite other users to become your protectors, nor accept their invitations to protect them. If you don't receive the confirmation email, check your spam folder and, if necessary, contact our technical support: support@app-elles.com.
Tip
If you are a victim of violence at the hands of someone close to you, we recommend creating a new email address known only to you and reserved exclusively for this use. The email address for your account will also be used for password reset requests and to send you backups of your alert data.
Your profile
So that your trusted contacts can recognise you, the app lets you customise your username and profile picture. This information can be added and changed at any time in the app's settings.
Tip
Prefer a nickname and avatar that only your trusted contacts can identify and recognise in their app.
Your geographical area
The app organises information by geographical area. Each area contains all the resources for its territory, along with those with national jurisdiction. You can change it at any time to access resources from another territory.
Tip
Set your default area to your place of residence or the closest one, and change it when looking up information for another territory.
The alert service
Your trusted contacts
Invite your protectors by entering the email address of their App-Elles account. You can invite up to 3 contacts to receive your alerts, and you can accept alerts from up to 3 of your contacts. A user who accepts an invitation is automatically set as a protector.
This trust relationship can only be initiated by the user who wishes to be protected — she is the only one who can send an invitation to a contact to make them her protector.
Tip
Reach out to people you know you can count on. Exchange identifiers (account email addresses) to make it easier to invite each other. Take the time to explain why you need to connect with them and what you expect if they receive an alert from your account.
Triggering an alert
When you trigger an alert, an audible notification is sent simultaneously to your protector contacts:
- Your microphone is activated: speak, if you can — your surrounding audio is shared and recorded in real time;
- Your GPS position is captured: your protectors see your location and follow you live;
- Your protectors' avatars appear on screen: a green dot appears when a protector is actively viewing your alert;
- You can label the nature of your alert: your protectors will know whether it is an emergency, a request for protection, a test or a mistake before opening the ongoing alert;
- You can also call emergency services at the same time;
- Your protectors can speak to you via walkie-talkie: their voice will come out of your phone's loudspeaker;
- You can only end your alert with the "Stop" button on your screen (regardless of how it was triggered);
- At the end of an alert, everything is recorded and saved to the Cloud. You can replay or download the alert from your alert history.
Tip
Enable your smartphone's biometric identification system (if available) to protect access to your alert history. The app will request this authentication before granting access to your archives (sent and received alerts).
If no contact is set as a protector in your app, your alert will still be recorded and retrievable from the alert history.
Tip
This can be useful if you want to use the alert service to record a conversation or things said to you (sexist insults, verbal and psychological abuse, etc.).