The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2023
Women Helping Women Asia's Undercover records abuse once its AI hears the opening insults
An AI-powered app listens for the shouted insults that mark abuse, secretly records what follows, and alerts a trusted contact when it escalates.
Women Helping Women Asia
What it had to solve
Studies cited in the work show that the vast majority of abusive incidents have one thing in common: a few very specific verbal insults tend to be shouted by the perpetrator. Women Helping Women Asia wanted a way for victims to collect evidence of the abuse itself, automatically, and for someone to be able to intervene before it escalated.
How it works
Studies cited in the work show that the vast majority of abusive incidents have one thing in common: a few very specific verbal insults tend to be shouted by the perpetrator. Those phrases are the audible signature of an incident that may otherwise be hard to prove — but catching them live has usually depended on the victim acting in the middle of the situation.
Women Helping Women Asia turned that signature into a trigger. Undercover, the organisation's app, uses AI trained to recognise the key phrases in Cantonese and in English spoken with a Cantonese accent. When the AI hears them, the app secretly starts recording the entire incident that follows, capturing evidence for the victim without announcing itself; if it judges the incident to be escalating, it sends an emergency alert to a pre-determined trusted contact so family or friends can intervene while it is still possible.
What makes the idea work is that the victim is never asked to act in the moment: the app listens continuously, starts recording at the right moment, and brings in a human at the point of escalation. Undercover was created by Ogilvy Hong Kong with Women Helping Women Asia, entered the D&AD Awards archive, and won a Graphite Pencil at D&AD in 2023.
Why it lands
- The trigger is verbal, not physical: the app starts on the specific shouted insults that research says mark the vast majority of abusive incidents.
- Recording is secret, so collecting evidence does not tip off the abuser or put the victim in more danger.
- Escalation has a human response: an emergency alert reaches a pre-determined trusted contact, so help can arrive rather than only a recording being saved.
- The AI is localised to Cantonese and Cantonese-accented English, so it recognises the phrases actually shouted in the community it serves.
What it did
A victim who carries a phone gains an automatic witness: the incident is recorded from the first insult, and an escalating situation triggers an alert to a trusted contact instead of waiting for someone to call for help. D&AD awarded Undercover a Graphite Pencil in 2023, and the work sits in the D&AD Awards archive.
What you can take
Put the intelligence in the tool for the user at greatest risk: trigger on the predictable verbal signature, record quietly, and escalate to a human as risk rises.
Since then
Undercover was created by Ogilvy Hong Kong in partnership with Women Helping Women Asia. D&AD awarded it a Graphite Pencil in 2023, and London International Awards recognised it with a Bronze the same year. Its D&AD archive page remains the reference for the idea: an AI trained on the insults that precede abuse, recording in secret and calling in a trusted contact when an incident escalates.
Sources
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