Women in Japan are downloading the country's anti-groping app - in record numbers

Jun 6, 2019

This article is published in collaboration with Business Insider.

Japanese women wearing kimonos look at their mobile phones after their Coming of Age Day celebration ceremony at an amusement park in Tokyo January 11, 2016. According to a government announcement, more than 1.2 million men and women who were born in 1995 marked the coming of age this year, a decrease of approximately 50,000 from last year. REUTERS/Yuya Shino - GF20000091007

The app is aimed specifically at protecting victims of sexual misconduct in crowded places Image: REUTERS/Yuya Shino

Nicole Einbinder

News Reporter, INSIDER

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An app in Japan specifically aimed at scaring off molesters is apparently massively succcessful in the country, according to AFP News.

The free smartphone app Digi Police, launched by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police three years ago, has been downloaded more than 237,000 times, which police official Keiko Toyamine described to AFP as an "unusually high figure."

Image: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images

So, how does the app work?

Let's say a person faces unwanted groping on a packed subway. They can proceed to activate the app, which either blasts a voice shouting "stop it," or produces a full-screen message saying "there is a molester. please help," to show to other passengers.

In Tokyo, there were almost 900 groping and other harassment cases on trains and subways reported in 2017, according to data from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

As Akiyoshi Saito, a certified social worker in Japan, told AFP, groping can occur anywhere with crowded trains.

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