The Safety App That Records Video During an SOS, and Never Uploads It
ORBII records video automatically when an SOS fires and saves it to your own gallery, never to our servers.
Most safety apps that advertise “evidence recording” do not tell you the part that matters, which is where the file goes.
That single question splits the category. A recording that stays on your phone, a recording uploaded to a company’s servers, and a recording streamed live to a third party are three completely different privacy positions wearing the same feature name.
Here is ORBII’s answer, including the part that is inconvenient for us.
What happens
You trigger an SOS. You do not open a camera, you do not press record, you do not point at anything.
Video starts on its own and keeps recording while the emergency screen is up. Each minute is written to your phone’s gallery, into an album called ORBII.
That is the whole flow. There is no upload step, because there is no upload.
Why it never leaves your phone
A camera pointed at an assault records the worst moment of somebody’s life. Footage like that should not sit on a company’s servers, and that includes ours.
Keeping it on your phone is not just a privacy preference, it removes an entire category of problem:
- We cannot leak what we never had. No breach of ORBII can expose it.
- We cannot be compelled to hand it over. Not by a court, not by a police request, not by anyone. There is nothing to produce.
- We are not moderating your worst moment. No employee reviews it, no automated system scans it, no policy team makes a judgement about it.
There is deliberately no share button, and that is the point people usually miss. The moment an app builds a way to distribute this footage, it has built the problem it was avoiding. If you want somebody to have it, you send it yourself, from your gallery, like any other video.
Why the audio is treated differently
This is the honest part, and most companies would not print it.
The audio clip does go to our servers, into a private, access-controlled store. That is a deliberate difference, not an oversight, because the two recordings have opposite risks.
| Audio | Video | |
|---|---|---|
| Biggest risk | The phone is snatched or smashed and the evidence dies with it | The content itself sitting on a company’s servers |
| So it is | Uploaded, so it survives losing the phone | Kept only on your phone |
An audio clip that exists solely on a phone that was taken from you is not evidence of anything. Video is different: it is far more sensitive, far more identifying, and far more damaging if it ever escaped.
Same feature name, opposite correct answer. We would rather explain that than pretend both work the same way.
Why the clips are one minute long
This is the engineering decision we would defend hardest, and it is invisible until the day it matters.
A video file writes its index at the end. Interrupt one long recording, by a crash, a dead battery, or the phone being taken, and you frequently get a file that will not play at all. Not a shorter video. Nothing.
So ORBII records in sixty second segments, and saves each one the moment it completes rather than waiting for the end. Everything captured before the interruption survives and plays.
On a safety app, the recording most likely to be interrupted is the recording most likely to matter. Designing for the clean case would be designing for the case where you did not need it.
What Android will not let us do
Recording stops if you lock the phone or switch apps.
Android does not let an app in the background hold the camera. That is an operating system rule and no app can work around it, including the ones that imply otherwise.
ORBII keeps the screen awake for the whole SOS so this happens as rarely as possible, and everything already recorded is already saved. But we are not going to write “records until help arrives” on a page you might read before deciding what to rely on.
Audio does not have this restriction, which is another reason the two are handled separately.
Three more things we refused to do
No permission prompt during an emergency. Camera access is asked for once, in Settings, in a calm moment. Putting a system dialog in front of someone who has just triggered an alarm is the worst possible time to ask them anything, and a mistaken tap would cost them the recording they were trying to make.
No recording when your phone is nearly full. ORBII will not start a new segment below 300 MB free. An app that fills your storage takes your maps and your dialler down with it, which is a strange way to keep you safe.
No way for video to break your SOS. Every failure in the recorder is silent and contained. No camera, no permission, no space, camera taken by another app: the SOS runs exactly the same. Evidence is a bonus on top of the alarm, never a condition of it.
How to turn it on
Settings → Evidence → Record video during an SOS.
Grant camera and gallery access once. After that it is automatic and you never touch it again.
The switch reads the real Android permission every time you open Settings, so if you revoke camera access later it will show as off rather than claiming to be protecting you.
It is free, and no paid entitlement was ever created for it, so there is nothing to switch on later that would put it behind a paywall.
The two questions to ask any safety app
- Does recording start without me? If you have to open the app and press a button, it will not happen. Nobody does that in a real emergency.
- Where exactly does the file go, and who can see it? “Securely stored” is not an answer. Ask whether it is on your device, on their servers, or with a third party, and ask what happens to it if the company is breached, sold, or served a legal request.
Ask ORBII the same two questions. The answers are on this page, including the ones that are not flattering.
See how the rest of ORBII works, or set up Voice SOS and test it in about a minute.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a safety app that records video automatically in an emergency?
Yes. ORBII starts recording video the moment an SOS fires, with no button to press. The footage is saved straight to your own phone gallery, in an album called ORBII, and is never uploaded to ORBII's servers. You turn it on once in Settings and it works by itself after that.
Where does the video go? Can the company see it?
It goes to your gallery and nowhere else. There is no upload, no cloud copy, and no share button. Nobody at ORBII can view it, hand it over, or be compelled to produce it, because it never reaches us. If you want anyone to have it, you send it yourself, the same way you would send any other video on your phone.
Why is the video saved in one minute clips instead of one long file?
Because a video file writes its index at the end. One long recording that is interrupted by a crash, a dead battery, or the phone being taken is often not playable at all. One minute segments mean everything captured before the interruption survives and plays. On a safety app, the recording most likely to matter is exactly the one that got interrupted.
Does the video have sound?
No, and that is deliberate. ORBII is already recording audio separately during an SOS, and two recorders competing for one microphone is a fight Android does not settle reliably. The audio clip is the one that reaches your responders, so the video gives up the microphone rather than risk it. The sound of the incident is still captured, just in the other file.
Does it keep recording if I lock the phone?
No. Android does not allow any app to hold the camera once it is in the background, so recording runs while the ORBII emergency screen is in front. ORBII keeps the screen awake for you. Everything recorded up to that point is already saved. Audio has no such restriction and keeps going.
Does recording video cost extra?
No. It is free, and there is no paid entitlement attached to it, so it cannot be moved behind a paywall later.