Android's New Feature Can Share Your Exact Location In Emergency Situation (thenextweb.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report on The Next Web: When the police, fire brigade or ambulances need to respond quickly to an emergency call, accurate information about the caller's location is crucial in helping them arrive in time to be of assistance. With that in mind, Google has introduced a feature in Android that beams your location to emergency services automatically when you call them. It uses your Wi-Fi, GPS and cell tower information to pinpoint exactly where you are and sends the data without allowing it to be accessed by anyone else. The feature is currently available in UK and Estonia, but Google plans to bring it to other regions as well. If your device has Android 2.3 or newer version, it will be able to make use of the feature.

Comments

Re:Define "Emergency"

[kruug]

According to the Google post, it appears to only enable itself when emergency services is contacted. Your phone has to initiate the "emergency".

Re:how can it be a new feature

[BarbaraHudson]

This is for backwards countries that haven't rolled out Enchanced 911 services. Great Britain and Estonia sounds about right. Other countries don't need this because calls to 911 from gps-equiped smartphones already send the location data to the call center via the carrier.

Wireless Enhanced 9-1-1 service

This type of wireless 9-1-1 service is provided in areas that receive Enhanced 9-1-1 service. To improve the safety and security of Canadians, the CRTC required wireless carriers to upgrade their 9-1-1 services to provide an enhanced capability to identify the location of wireless 9-1-1 callers. This is particularly important in emergency situations where the caller is unable to speak or cannot identify his or her location. This improved location capability is enabled by two technologies:

Global Positioning System (GPS) or Triangulation Capability

With Enhanced 9-1-1, wireless carriers use Global Positioning System (GPS) or Triangulation technology to identify a 9-1-1 caller’s location (generally within 50 to 300 meters of the cellphone). The emergency call and the caller’s location are automatically transmitted to a 9-1-1 call centre serving that area.

Not all new cellphones have GPS capability. To get more information on a cellphone’s 9-1-1 service, check your manual or ask your wireless service provider. GPS capability uses signals from satellites to determine a cellphone’s location.

If your cellphone does not have GPS capability, wireless carriers can also use triangulation technology, which locates the caller by measuring the cellphone signal’s distance from nearby cellphone towers.

The location information, as determined by either GPS or triangulation, will be provided to the 9-1-1 operator if you are using either a cellphone with pre-paid minutes or a wireless service plan. If you have a cellphone but are not subscribed to any service, you can still dial 9-1-1 in an emergency and get basic wireless 9-1-1 service.

The US has a more complicated regulatory environment, where there is a disincentive to offering E911 services because if you (the carrier) does offer it and is not in compliance, the carrier gets penalties imposed.