China's homegrown Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) has expanded its usage in the civil application and is helping pupils to enjoy the summer vacation with more safety.

A total of 17,000 pupils in the Nansha district, South China's Guangzhou city, have received free watches equipped with BDS, which can help their parents get their real-time location and alerts for any potential safety risks.

The watch is equipped with a location chip, the BDS and the chip work together to help detect the location. Even if the satellite signals are blocked it can still be detected with an accuracy of 10 meters, said Zhu Yanjun, the leader of the project.

As the district has many water bodies, the watch can send water risk alerts to parents, Zhu added.

Families participated in this program voluntarily and as of Friday, 8,000 out of 17,000 users have finished the registration process and are online now. The personal information of the users is registered on the database of the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The program is one of the efforts to promote the civil application of BDS in the district. More programs like security wrist rings for adults, smart locks for logistics pallets are in the pipeline.