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Google Helped Cause the Mysterious Increase In 911 Calls SF Asked It To Solve (bbc.com)
theodp writes: Android users have long complained publicly that it's way too easy to accidentally dial 911. So it's pretty astonishing that it took a team of Google Researchers and San Francisco Department of Emergency Management government employees to figure out that butt-dialing was increasing the number of 911 calls. The Google 9-1-1 Team presented its results in How Googlers helped San Francisco Use Data Science to Understand a Surge in 911 Calls, a Google-sponsored presentation at the Code for America Summit, and in San Francisco's 9-1-1 Call Volume Increase, an accompanying 26-page paper.
Many Android phones when you press the power button the screen activates with the "Emergency Call" touchable which means it easily enters calling mode. Since emergency services is the only valid call you can make from that screen those are the "butt dials" getting through.
More annoying is the fact that holding the power button, something that seems to happen often in my pocket, brings up the "silent/airplane mode/power off" options without having to enter the pass key. I've missed so many calls because of this damn "feature". It's a combination of bad phone design and bad software design.
"Help! My owner has me trapped in these tight jeans!"
Have gnu, will travel.
Sorry, not going to start carrying a murse.
What about a belt clip? It worked for Batman.
lucm, indeed.
Butt texting... now THAT"S a challenge.
Read the document instead of relying on a poor, click-baiting summary. There's an actual problem with ass callers.
Although the source data (i.e., whether a call is coming from a landline, cellphone or business) can be passed from the telephone system to the CAD system, technical issues can require human intervention to capture this data in CAD. For example, in 2014, DEM discovered that telephone routers could take 2-8 seconds to transmit ANI/ALI information (which includes source data) to dispatcher phones. However, if ANI/ALI information is not present at the time the dispatcher begins typing in the CAD Incident Entry window, source data is not captured, and dispatchers would need to manually port source data into the CAD Incident Entry window. Given this, source data (particularly for wireless calls, labeled as “W911”) was lacking in the CAD dataset which impacted the ability to identify the number CAD incidents created from wireless calls. Correspondingly, the number of CAD incidents resulting from wireless calls is significantly underrepresented, given that ~60% of DEM’s call volume comes from wireless phones.
lucm, indeed.
Your translation is wrong. The problem is not the 911 software. The problem is the delay in getting the caller id from the PSTN, and this is not something they can accelerate from the 911 data center.
Imagine that your boss tells you that he wants to receive emails within one second of any client or potential customer sending them. The problem is not his Thunderbird or Outlook settings, the problem is that email has to cross multiple boundaries, from one ISP to another, from one SMTP server to another, and nobody has control over the entire process.
In the case of 911, how can they fix it? Operators get thousands of hang up calls for which they don't get the caller id immediately when the form pops up on their screen. Instead of spending 20 seconds tidying up the call information they dismiss it with the "ass caller" flag. The call is logged but no details are entered in the database, and while technically they probably are able to reconcile calls using the switch logs or some other mean, it's just a huge pain in the ass that nobody has the budget to deal with. Typical big data problem.
lucm, indeed.
I was out in the woods one day and sitting on a hill for a while. I thought I heard some noise from my pocket, so I checked my phone. I had a voicemail from 911 saying something to the effect of "This is the third time you've called 911! Please check your damn phone!"
I checked my phone and it had two outgoing calls to 911 in the list. I was pretty horrified.
They obviously were familiar with butt dials. However, what if I was injured and unable to speak? Hopefully they could tell the difference. At least I didn't get a helicopter flying over me or something.
The ease at which the phones can dial 911 is absolutely stupid... it's absolutely Google's fault. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to make it harder to do accidentally, but still easy enough to do if you're injured/impaired.
My biggest gripe with using an Android phone is that the phone unlocks during calls even when they placed/answered via a hands-free Bluetooth device. Answering a call via Bluetooth with your phone in your pocket unlocks it and starts feeding the UI random screen clicks. People have been filing bugs to the Android team over this issue since 2011 and it has never been addressed, and the newer bugs keep getting pushed to lower and lower priority. Its safe to say at this point that Android butt dialing is now a feature and is included by design.
is to change 911 to 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3 instead. It's an easy number to remember, just learn the song!
If you can't put your phone in your front pocket where you won't ever butt dial and instead put it in your back pocket, news flash, you're already wearing a "murse." Its just in the form of ball-crushing tight pants with no space.
Free the dangly appendages, wear more comfortable pants!