Emergency Management from the Future

FAQs

Who is the Parachute Platform for?

The Parachute Platform is for any organization or team that would like to receive live Parachute incidents. Teams get access to tools that previously cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or just simply didn't exist before. The Parachute Platform is currently deployed in safety, healthcare, insurance, news, transportation, human rights, as well as in many small organizations who are adding this functionality to their organization for the first time.

Does the Parachute Platform let me access every Parachute incident?

No. You can only receive and access Parachute incidents that have been sent to your hotline. When users add your hotline to their emergency contacts, all their subsequent incidents are sent to your hotline automatically, until they remove your hotline from their emergency contacts. You only have access to incidents in your hotline.

Can I manually import an incident that was not sent to my hotline?

Yes. If you receive a link to a Parachute incident through other means (e.g. when a user forwards their incident email to your team), you can manually import the incident to a hotline through the Incidents panel

Where is Parachute data stored?

By default, Parachute data is stored in a proprietary blend of storage locations, which may include the United States. The Parachute Platform lets you fully control and customize how your data is stored and archived. We offer storage options in several countries across the world and additional storage features. You may also manage storage and archiving entirely on your own, thus relying on Parachute only to route the incident from a user's phone to your servers.

What is a hotline?

Much like a traditional telephone hotline, a Parachute hotline lets you receive Parachute incidents from anyone who adds your hotline to their emergency contacts. Parachute hotlines bring the concept of traditional phone hotlines into the future, providing you with very powerful functionality. Parachute hotlines let you see live video, audio, location, and other data straight from the scene; they let you route incidents to endpoints such as email, phone, alarm, paging, dispatch, TVs, notaries, social media and more; they let you archive the incidents you receive so they are never lost and easily searched; and they provide powerful incident-level and macro-level analytics on your incidents.

How does a user add my hotline to their emergency contacts?

When you create a Parachute hotline, we provide you with a unique link by which users can add the hotline to their emergency contacts (Demo Hotline Link). You are free to disseminate this link in any way you want and provide any styling to it. When the user touches the link from a phone with Parachute installed, the Parachute app is opened and they are shown a dialog with a brief description of the hotline and a link to its privacy policy. Confirming the dialog adds the hotline to their emergency contacts. You can see all users that have currently added your hotline to their emergency contacts through the hotline's Users panel.

Is there a public directory of Parachute hotlines?

No. Because not all organizations wish to make their hotlines available to the wider public, it is up to each organization to disseminate their Parachute hotline links as they see fit. Organizations can also restrict who can send incidents to their hotline.

Why do I need a privacy policy url for each hotline?

Before a user adds your hotline to their emergency contacts, they have to accept your privacy policy. The user needs to know what their data will be used for. For instance, the user has very different expectations when adding a news channel hotline vs when adding a medical services provider hotline vs when adding a campus police hotline. It is extremely important to provide the user with a very clear privacy policy. All privacy policies will be reviewed by the Parachute team. Violating your own privacy policy will immediately terminate your access to the Parachute Platform.

What is an endpoint?

A Parachute endpoint is anything that can receive an emergency. When your hotline receives an emergency, the Parachute Platform routes (forwards) this emergency to all the endpoints you have configured. The endpoints can then act on the emergency. For example, a phone endpoint will text and call a number. An email endpoint will send out an email. A paging endpoint interacts with your paging system to send out a page. The Parachute Platform has several ready-to-use endpoints that you can configure in seconds. You can set the routing rules for when emergencies are routed to a particular endpoint. For example, you can have emergencies from different geographic regions routed to different phone numbers, or have emergencies sent to different email addresses depending on the time they are received. You add a new endpoint via the Parachute Platform's New Endpoint page.

What is a custom endpoint?

When you would like to further extend the Parachute Platform, you create a custom endpoint. Custom endpoints use a very straightforward API to receive emergencies, and are then free to act on an emergency in whatever way the wish. For example, an insurance company can create a custom endpoint to automatically create a new claim and add the Parachute incident as evidence to the claim, or a transportation company can automatically alert nearby drivers.

What is a composite?

Composites let you combine multiple Parachute incidents into a single incident in a matter of minutes. For example, when you receive 10 different incidents from 6 different people depicting the same event (e.g. a protest), you can combine all 10 incidents into a single composite. This lets you reconstruct an event and review the incidents together, in perfect sync. Just like incidents, composites are shareable via a web link. Composites are a very powerful tool that replaces painstaking manual work that would previously take weeks.

Can I use Parachute in an app I am developing?

We offer API to programmatically activate Parachute from your own app. At the end of the incident, the Parachute app yields control back to your own app. While we do not offer a drop-in Parachute library, the perception to the end user is almost identical, since your app yields control to Parachute only when the incident is in progress. Not offering a drop-in Parachute library allows us to very quickly manage and patch the application for OS changes and new functionality, without having to rely on third-party developers updating their libraries and releasing new versions. This is very important for an application like Parachute. You register your app via the Parachute Platform's Register App page.

Can I use Parachute with a panic button I am developing?

Yes (Beta only). Parachute has baked-in support for a wide range of Bluetooth and WiFi based devices, including simple buttons. This allows users to activate Parachute without using their phone. Using Parachute as the backend for a panic button you are developing lets you focus on designing great hardware and not having to worry about providing an app and infrastructure to handle the rest. You register your device via the Parachute Platform's Register Device page.

How soon can I be up and running on the Parachute Platform?

Once you receive access, you can be up and running in minutes. This means you can create hotlines, attach custom endpoints, connect your apps and your devices, and start receiving incidents in a matter of minutes. Before the Parachute Platform, such tools would take months to set up and would offer very limited functionality.

Why should I trust Parachute to carry potentially controversial data?

Parachute has no affiliation with any political, economic or social cause. Our role is to provide a reliable platform for emergencies, that, much like Twitter, is open to anyone, regardless of background and beliefs. The Parachute team will never access data unless specifically asked to do so by the initiator of the incident. Should we find ourselves unable to provide a neutral service for all, we will cease to operate. Please review Privacy and email privacy@parachute.live for your privacy concerns.

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Have more questions? Email us at hi@platform.parachute.live