It’s been almost 4 years since I interviewed Safe Squad founder Mercedes Molloy. Launched in 2019, Safe Squad is an app, available on iOS and Android, that allows one’s sensitive data—calendar appointments, contacts, messaging, and more—to be stored in a discreet container. Users can create a unique passcode, and the software includes a built-in SOS feature that alerts select people in case an emergency arises. As I wrote in early 2021, the overarching goal of Safe Squad is to “provide a safe place for users to input vital information on their phone without worrying about a possible predator gleaning intimate details about one’s self.” The app has accessibility features like text resizing.
In a sentence, Safe Squad makes safety more accessible to everyone.
Molloy’s impetus to build Safe Squad stemmed from trauma, as she was raped by a classmate when she was 12 years old. Apart from talking with me, she wrote about her experiences, essentially saying that, however traumatizing it was to be sexually assaulted, she wasn’t going to let the experience wholly define her existence. Molloy wrote in part “I could help others who were unable to speak by telling my story, unashamed and encouraging others to remain persistent by recognizing that there should be no time frame or stipulations upon one’s healing journey.”
I recently reconnected with Molloy via videoconference to learn about her life’s adventures since last interviewing her. She told me the biggest thing that’s happened since then and now is “the continuation” of working on SafeSquad, pointing to how it’s now available in 165 countries compared to only 22 a few years ago. It’s meaningful to Molloy because “there are people in all different countries [and] all different parts of the world who need safety and who are of the mindset that safety matters.” She noted she got to work alongside the State Department, traveling to the United States embassy in Iceland where officials allowed tourists to use the embassy as a safe space in Safe Squad. Working on the app, Molloy told me, is “a labor of love,” saying “you never truly understand the impact it’ll have on people’s lives or the reach it can have.” She added her mindset always as been about making a difference in one person’s life will have made the efforts worthwhile; with Safe Squad’s exponential growth, Molloy said it’s been “so rewarding” to know she’s helped people the world over. She shared an anecdote about vacationing in Mexico with her family when serendipity struck and she befriended a group of girls who told her Safe Squad went viral on TikTok and that they “loved” the app for keeping them safe.
“It was such an emotional moment for me,” Molloy said of how the encounter with the girls resonated with her. “I was crying because you don’t expect that to happen. It was a beautiful, human moment of connection that transcended language barriers and realizing there’s a need for safety everywhere. That’s something that can unite us all.”
Molloy is thriving nowadays, but acknowledged she’s indeed had her fair share of “dark moments.” She described having the ability to help others vis-a-vis Safe Squad has helped her along her own journey towards healing, telling me “it’s easy to self-isolate [and] do all that—and I did. I couldn’t change what happened to myself, but I can change what happens to other people. I’m helping others get the justice I wasn’t able to have by preventing them from going through a similar experience, or hopefully inspire other survivors to come forward or inspire other survivors to start their own organizations or share their own stories.”
Molloy explained Safe Squad is primarily used by Millennials and Gen Z, but emphasized the notion that safety is demographically agnostic. Everyone, young or old, disabled or not, needs to (and deserves) to feel safe. For graduating college, Molloy did her senior thesis on what she termed “preventative safety and the silent epidemic of sexual assault and domestic violence.” She fortuitously was able to use Safe Squad as a case study in her report, telling me “it was incredibly rewarding to see that.”
As to the future, Molloy said Safe Squad will be “temporarily unavailable” as the team is working on a major update. It’s going to take some time to put together, she said, but there are new features in the proverbial pipeline as well as plans for a heavy marketing blitz on social media. Molloy also ran for public office, trying for a seat on the Scotts Valley city council earlier this month. She didn’t win, but Molloy is proud of throwing her hat in because “people want to see women who are coming forward and who are able to do things… I know for myself, there wasn’t a lot of representation in the survivor community.”
Molloy is a survivor striving to make others feel heard.
“Sometimes it’s hard to carry that weight,” she said. “I think what comes with that weight is a responsibility, and it’s a responsibility I take seriously. I hope to be able to honor and respect all those individuals when I’m carrying this [Safe Squad] platform and the survivor voice.”