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Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

345 points by chmaynard 8y ago

ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
Good for Apple for helping to save lives. As someone who's had to wait for an ambulance while someone is dying I understand how horrible that wait is and how desperately you want them to get to you as quickly as possible. The second part of this however is to ensure it's not open to abuse (by criminals or the government) for non emergency calls.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  I’d like to see Apple help subsidize the cost of upgrading the software required in rural emergency call centers if it’s required to interoperate with this new feature (perhaps coming out of their corporate social responsibility budget).
  - Rotten194 8y ago
    maybe apple could actually pay taxes and those could be used for the same benefit ;)
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - abritinthebay 8y ago
      Apple does pay taxes. Want them to pay more? Vote.
  - dpark 8y ago
    I mean, sure, if Apple wants to spend their money upgrading rural 911 call centers, good for them. But do you feel that it's reasonable to expect this, and if so, why?
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Because without the call center support, their marketing of it as a feature in iOS 12 is a moot point. “Look at this awesome life saving feature that only works in wealthy parts of the US!”
      - dpark 8y ago
        I don't grasp this logic. Apple builds a feature to help with 911 services so they should fund 911 services? Apple also implemented Amber Alert support. Should they fund the Amber Alert system, too? Aren't emergency services pretty clearly the government's job? You already pay a fee on your cell bill specifically to cover the cost of 911 services to your local and state governments.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Edit: Benjammer’s response is superior to mine. Yes, large device manufacturers should help fund the infrastructure they build product support into their products for. You might disagree with my opinion, but I don’t see the opinion as being wildly out of line. If Apple doesn’t fund it, and per mobile line 911 taxes don’t cover it, everyone’s taxes have to go up to support Apples enhanced feature and the marketing goodwill they’ll receive. Does that seem fair?
        dpark 8y ago
        I'm just at a loss. This is literally what taxes are for. If you want to argue that Apple et al should have to pay for their use of, e.g., GPS, I could understand that. (Not agree, but understand.) GPS has enabled high-value features to be built into Apple's products. On the other hand, Amber alert and 911 service support are literally mandated by the government. Apple cannot choose to not include them. (Though in this case, they could choose to not support RapidSOS, at least until it's mandated as well.) Edit: And yes, it seems entirely fair that taxes could go up to enable additional government services.
        8y ago
  - Benjammer 8y ago
    Surprising but not surprising that this is getting so much hate on HN... So many people acting like public 911 municipal services should be expected to "out-compete" Apple, treating this like just another biz dev case study, like "Well, then why doesn't _the useless government_ upgrade their 911 to be as good as _Apple_ then, huh??
craftyguy 8y ago
> The approach developed by Apple and RapidSOS sends location data from an iPhone to a "clearinghouse" accessible to emergency calling centers. Only the 911 calling centers will be able to see the data during the call, and none of it can be used for non-emergency purposes, according to Apple. How long until this information is available to law enforcement?
- Drakim 8y ago
  PUBLIC RELATIONS PERSON: You don't understand, they aren't actively looking at the data so it's not spying. It's just being archived at our central servers for important future use, and any access is subject to warrants (for now). We are working with Google to bring this important life-saving terrorist-defeating child porn-detecting feature to Android. Think of the Children! (I really hope it only sends out the information exactly while the phone is calling 911. Maybe in the future we'll have big debates about whether people should be able to "walk dark" without a mobile tracking device in the streets.)
  - abtinf 8y ago
    Why shouldn’t it be archived for future use?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Drakim 8y ago
      Why shouldn't all your traffic, location data, and thoughts be archived for future use? Maybe in 30 years we figure out you are one of the undesirables of society, and we'll have an easy time getting rid of you and your kind. It's a great boon for society to preserve all data.
      - abtinf 8y ago
        That is not the context of this news. The context here is recording pertinent information when a person chooses to request emergency law enforcement, medical, and fire services.
walterbell 8y ago
For anyone with the iOS12 beta, is there an opt-out for this system service in the Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services list? What happens if "Location Services" has been disabled by MDM policy, or was never enabled since the device was setup? On a new iOS11 device, if you decline to enable Location Services during setup, it stays disabled. Once enabled, it can no longer be disabled, and the system service "Share My Location" cannot be disabled, even if all other app and system services are blocked from accessing Location data.
- abtinf 8y ago
  In what circumstances would you want to contact 911 but not reveal your location?
  - walterbell 8y ago
    The purpose of opt-out is: device owner decides when to opt-out device owner does not need to explain why Defaults serve common requirements. Opt-out serves everything else. At the scale of billions of devices, there can be millions of "edge cases" which need to opt-out of defaults, for contextual and time-variable reasons.
  - vxNsr 8y ago
    Maybe you just don't want your location ever being sent to a gov agency no matter your predicament.
    - tzahola 8y ago
      Carriers know your approximate location all the time, even without this feature. If you don't want to be tracked, you must pull out your SIM card.
    - dpark 8y ago
      And yet here you are making a call on a cell phone. Turning off location services does not make your phone invisible on the cell network. Your provider knows with fair accuracy where your phone is at all times that it has service (and often even when it does not).
emptybits 8y ago
Will it be possible to make an anonymous 911 call? There can be scenarios, I think, where we (society) do not want to deter someone from reporting an emergency due to fear of being identified. Off the top of my head, consider a situation involving organized crime taking place, where call centre staff (or law enforcement) may be compelled to leak the identity of a witness.
- bitL 8y ago
  Get one of those credit card-sized phones like AIEK just for 911? They should be able to call 911 even without SIM card.
  - vxNsr 8y ago
    Right, so that's not even remotely a plausible solution for the OPs senario.
    - bitL 8y ago
      Why not? Those phones can fit into a purse, they are really credit card-sized, don't look like phones at all, and 911 can anyway identify persons by their speech when they run them through any modern voice recognition system if they need to de-anonymize them.
      - vxNsr 8y ago
        Because the people who would be deterred from calling 911 to stay anonymous aren't the type to buy another phone expressly to call 911 anonymously. What global db do you envision that has everyone's accurate voice print?
        bitL 8y ago
        We should not be naive. The tech is already there, I don't expect such DBs won't be built as it's already doable. And accuracy can be improved as algorithms get better.
rwmj 8y ago
I had to make a 999 call a few years back because I saw a woman faint and bang her head on a concrete pavement. Although I was in the local area which I know very well, it was really difficult - when put on the spot in an emergency - to describe my exact location.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  Yeah. I regularly test myself when bored while driving to verbalize where I am. "Highway 401 East.. uhh I think I passed an exit for Guelph a while ago? I don't see a marker at the moment." Off topic: if you're often bored while driving, learn the NATO phonetic alphabet using license plates around you. It helps me four or five times a year when reading off things to people in customer service. The beauty of it is that people who don't know it can still understand it when said to them.
  - MekaiGS 8y ago
    Hi to fellow KW/Guelph YC news reader :)
  - balabaster 8y ago
    Do you know how many times I use the phonetic alphabet and then have to simplify even more because the person on the other end of the phone doesn't understand it? :D F for what? S? F is now Frank and S is now Sugar, because Foxtrot and Sierra often just get "was that s or f? What is Soxtrot?" it's ridiculous. I think everyone should be taught the NATO phonetic alphabet in school. When I'm talking to someone on the phone, I don't want to have to resort to Apple Banana Chocolate like we're all 5. Also, I live just down the road from Guelph and worked in Guelph for a while :)
    - kbenson 8y ago
      > When I'm talking to someone on the phone, I don't want to have to resort to Apple Banana Chocolate like we're all 5. So, the solution to not wanting to feel self conscious while saying decidedly simple and inoffensive words, and for task simple enough that people could probably be given a simple sentence or two instruction (choose a word that doesn't sound like another one) and could come up with valid examples (like you just did), is to force them to learn a semi-universal and generic set of mostly nonsense words and names? I did tech support for years, and any time I had to have someone type out a specific set of characters, it was not hard to just rely on common names, animals, or other extremely common words. The amount of wasted man-years in teaching and testing a phonetic alphabet for such little benefit would be mind boggling. The military has very specific requirements which change the cost benefit analysis greatly (verbal communication during battle conditions, for one), but those don't really apply to most people. It's trivial to come up with something that works well on the fly.
ape4 8y ago
I was expecting it was going to be sent as tones in the voice call.
joecool1029 8y ago
I must be missing something, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1 Hasn't 911 location been shared via gps location in pretty much every cellphone for the past decade? I remember shitty verizon kyocera clamshells advertising gps for 911 in like 2004.
- jaxbot 8y ago
  No. It's possible that this information has been available, but the connection to the end operator depends on local, non-standard setups. I once called 911 to report a passed out individual in Central Park. I tried relaying landmarks, lamp post #s, etc. Eventually it turns out the operator needed "5th and 80th, but in the park" to clear their prompt and dispatch an ambulance. This is on a relatively new dispatch system, too, that for some reason doesn't support GPS coordinates.
- scrooched_moose 8y ago
  The accuracy and timing requirements are terrible and still use some combination of radio location and raw cellular data. Some extracts from the article you linked: > Wireless network operators must provide the latitude and longitude of callers within 300 meters, within six minutes of a request by a PSAP. > Code division multiple access (CDMA) networks tend to use handset-based radiolocation technologies, which are technically more similar to radionavigation. > Mobile phone users may also have a selection to permit location information to be sent to non-emergency phone numbers or data networks, so that it can help people who are simply lost or want other location-based services. Presumably Apple is going to share their Wifi-assisted data instead of raw GPS signal or radiolocation data. Looking at my location in a dense urban zone, 300m would narrow my location down to roughly 300 houses. Good enough to get emergency services on the way, not nearly good enough to render assistance if the caller can't speak/doesn't know where they are.
rando444 8y ago
For those not aware, enhanced 911 / 112 has existed in some way shape or form for almost the past 20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1
- GeekyBear 8y ago
  More specifically, this is an implementation of Enhanced 911, Phase 2. Support for Phase 2 will be required in the US next year. 911 service has gone through a few different capability upgrades. Basic 911: You communicate the nature of the emergency and it's location by voice. Enhanced 911: The call center receives your landline phone number and looks up your address from a database. E911 Phase 1: The call center receives the mobile phone number and the location of the cell tower taking the call. E911 Phase 2: The call center receives the mobile phone number and the phone's location. http://www.marioncoks.net/Departments/EmergencyCommunications/WhatisPhaseIIEnhanced911/tabid/7542/Default.aspx http://www.marioncoks.net/Departments/EmergencyCommunication... Apple is simply implementing the new standard here.
josefresco 8y ago
I'm reading almost near universal praise. Isn't this essentially a "back door" to location services, only accessible to law enforcement? Sounds ... familiar. It gets worse/better(?) Apple's upcoming 911 feature relies on technology from RapidSOS, a New York startup. The approach developed by Apple and RapidSOS sends location data from an iPhone to a "clearinghouse" accessible to emergency calling centers. Only the 911 calling centers will be able to see the data during the call, and none of it can be used for non-emergency purposes, according to Apple. So Apple AND RapidSOS get to see my location when using 911? Cool cool.
- ForrestN 8y ago
  If the text you quoted is accurate, the data is only accessible to emergency calling centers, so no, unless they are lying neither company can see your location. Perhaps it’s encrypted, a bit like sending an iMessage to the 9/11 dispatcher, or some other means of anonymization is used.
  - josefresco 8y ago
    the data is only accessible to emergency calling centers This same argument is use to justify why we shouldn't allow encryption back doors. The reasons include: access will leak, law enforcement cannot be trusted. I don't see anything in this announcement that addresses those concerns.
    - jonknee 8y ago
      The location is also only sent during the 911 call, so if you don't dial 911 your location isn't in the database and the security of the database doesn't matter, your location is "safe". https://info.rapidsos.com/blog/bringing-apple-device-location-to-911 https://info.rapidsos.com/blog/bringing-apple-device-locatio... > When this feature is made available later this year in an iOS software update, Apple phones will send fast and accurate device location to the NG911 Clearinghouse when a user dials 9-1-1.
      - 8y ago
microcolonel 8y ago
Seems like it would be better for this to be transmitted in-band, like caller ID. This is a good step though.
ensignavenger 8y ago
How does this differ from the existing system? I thought your cell carrier would already use GPS if it was available to communicate your location to the 911 call center, and route it to the appropriate call center?
VonGuard 8y ago
Oakland needs this help so badly. Call 911 on a cell in Oakland, and you're going to wait on hold for 30 minutes, most of which will be you being transfered to the wrong departments over and over. You start at a call center somewhere in middle America with a person who does not know where Oakland is. They pass you to CA CHP, who don't know Oakland either, because their dispatcher on the line is out of Sacramento. Finally, you get dumped to the local 911, which is overwhelmed, has long hold times, and sometimes even hangs up on you. Just FYI, if you are ever in Oakland and have trouble, DO NOT CALL 911. Call the police directly at 510-777-3333 This Oakland 911 problem is, I think, the biggest single technical problem with Oakland as a whole, and it's been this way for 20 years...
- philip1209 8y ago
  SF 911 hold times are ridiculous. On two occasions (out of about four ever) I abandoned the call after being on hold for 5+ minutes.
- core-questions 8y ago
  Let's say 911 there got staffed up and got resources to handle the call volume. Would this actually translate to better emergency services response? One assumes they're also all busy, all the time, no?
  - detaro 8y ago
    High-priority call that makes it through to a dispatcher at least has a chance to be "triaged" and responders from something less urgent pulled for it?
    - core-questions 8y ago
      Mmm, good point. Still, I'd bet that the money would be better spent beefing up policing / emergency service efforts instead of giving them even more work that they'll never get to. That said, I'd never feel safe living somewhere where 911 didn't answer immediately and have an average response time within a few minutes.
bungie4 8y ago
I work in 911, Telematics, alarm, PERS space. We are a PSAP (Public Safety Answer Point) The device might send a Geocode, but reverse geo-coding (turning a long/lat into a human readable place) is a highly inaccurate thing. Secondly, most responders have no means of turning a long/lat into a point on the map, short of using their personal phone. Next, altitude is not factored in. Imagine being in a downtown office building. If nobody is downstairs to guide responders, or if the caller was unable to speak, they will have a really difficult time determining just which building/floor you are in. Its all gotten much worse with the advent of mobile/VOIP and now, WIFI phone systems where your phone can move. Its a system ill equipped to handle it.
- Terretta 8y ago
  > ”reverse geo-coding, turning a lat/long into a human readable place highly inaccurate ... no means of turning a lat/long into a point on the map” Three words for you ... https://what3words.com https://what3words.com
  - antsar 8y ago
    That helps with communicating the lat/long, but not with determining where that actually is. With what3words, not only are first responders still required to use some mobile device, but they're also reliant on a proprietary service (read: point of failure).
    - bungie4 8y ago
      Exactly.
    - matte_black 8y ago
      There should be no point of failure. By using the same hashing algorithm to produce 3 words worldwide, anyone with the same seed could produce coordinates for any words. Or the 3 words for any coordinates.
  - tpetry 8y ago
    But navigation systems in an car do work on streetnames and numbers ;)
gregsadetsky 8y ago
This is an extraordinarily important and interesting “space” ripe for innovation. A few weeks ago, I was awarded one of the highest civilian public awards from the Commandant of the US Coast Guard in DC for my volunteer web mapping work during Harvey. That work helped coordinate 700 helicopter sorties and save 1700 lives. I’ve been thinking — and talking with Emergency Responders — about what an up to date 911 would look like. Location is a huge part of it. Texting, sending images and videos would also be on the timeline. Consider how much real-time location info — and live HD video streams — can 1 mobile phone produce, and how close to none of that is available in an emergency situation. Consider how 911 is but one service, and that this is a worldwide problem. And that smartphones are worldwide too, and that there’s hundreds of millions of them. I’m starting to plan out next steps. Connecting smartphones and emergency responders. Being a worldwide emergency digital-first dispatch service. Imagine!
- briandear 8y ago
  Congrats on your award and thanks for your Harvey work. As a former Houstonian, that event is close to my heart.
- bovine3dom 8y ago
  There's some work in this area already, e.g. https://www.goodsamapp.org/ https://www.goodsamapp.org/.
  - gregsadetsky 8y ago
    Thanks for the link. I think that this needs to be on mobile OS level to be effective. The good news is that there are only 2 major ones. See https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/ https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/ and the 112 (the EU’s 911) work on AML. That service, piggybacking on SMS to send location, is supported by both Android and iOS but is only available in a few countries.
- bungie4 8y ago
  Yup. But the issue is a financial one, not a technological one. All manner of things can be accomplished at the origin. But all the other links in the chain must have access to the companion technology (read money). This is just not available on a widespread basis. Then, you have issues of adoption, and, competing services and standards. We are experiencing this very thing with regards to Fire dispatch, with all manner of fireman 'apps'. All of which are different with different protocols. So much so, that we now refuse to support any of them.
dbcooperlives 8y ago
I have been deploying e911 call taking systems for more than 10 years. All the areas that I service have been getting pretty accurate location data on mobile callers since I started. Initially, the providers send the location of the tower they are on and the triangulation data with the call. A couple of seconds later they will send more accurate GPS coordinates for most calls, which are usually pretty good. Sometimes there are issues where a provider will send a call to the wrong PSAP because the users location is unclear. This is usually fixed if the 911 operator rebids the call... it will be routed correctly almost 100% the second time and is generally quicker than a manual attended transfer. I am not saying that they couldn't do better, but this article insinuates there is some kind of major problem where there isn't. All that being said, people with specific risk situations (an elderly parent they care for or a disabled child for example) should call the business line for your local 911 public safety answering point and have them add specific information to the file associated with your number.
- jonknee 8y ago
  > I am not saying that they couldn't do better, but this article insinuates there is some kind of major problem where there isn't. That's great that where you are it seems to work well, but it's a big country and Apple is in a much better position to know if meaningful improvements can be made nationwide (and it sounds like they're not going for "pretty good", but for "best possible"). Also, RapidSOS seems to be targeting urban areas where GPS is notoriously spotty.
- dingaling 8y ago
  > A couple of seconds later they will send more accurate GPS coordinates for most calls I wish my day-to-day GPS initialised and obtained an initial fix that quickly. Usually it needs at least five minutes, sometimes over an hour. From an earlier job I vaguely remember that a NavStar cold-fix requires two or three minutes at a minimum with optimal conditions.
  - 21 8y ago
    Maybe you just need a new phone/device? With each new phone I had faster and faster GPS lock time.
wintorez 8y ago
I'm OK with this.
LinuxBender 8y ago
Cell phones have been sending gps coordinates since 1997 as part of the e911 project. Support for it was a hardware requirement in GSM phones in '98 and was supposed to be in all phones shortly after that. Who dropped the ball?
mcculley 8y ago
Today I had to call AAA to request a tow truck. I called from my cell phone and the automated system told me that it was determining my location from the cell towers and using that to route me to the best place. How does that work? I have worked with Twilio but I don't see any API for getting a caller's location. Is that something available with different providers?
- tedmiston 8y ago
  Pretty sure what they're using is just cell tower triangulation. At least in my experience, they also ask you to describe your location more precisely as well.
  - mcculley 8y ago
    I get that they are using cell tower triangulation. I'm wondering what API allows AAA to get that information from the incoming call. Do they have some system talking SS7? Can smaller players build something similar?
npx 8y ago
I went to elementary school with the founder of RapidSOS and it's pretty cool to see one of us country boys making the front page of HN! If I'm being objective about this, I think it's a fairly good idea in the abstract but it will be very difficult to monetize. Where I grew up, there are still huge gaps in cellular coverage and this won't help people who can't even make a call. I do think there is a there there but it's fraught with peril. That said, best of luck to Michael! At the very least, his heart is in the right place.
chicob 8y ago
I see this pattern more often, whenever new tracking systems are deployed with little to no discussion, be it 911 or eCall: it is for our own good.
bpowah 8y ago
Undoubtedly desperately needed tech, but I don't understand why the geolocation couldn't be embedded in the voice call itself (14.4k modem style). It's such a tiny amount of data, it wouldn't need to interfere with the call at all, or necessarily even be audible. Why the need for a "clearinghouse" and a third-party private company service lock-in by already stretched emergency services?
thomasfedb 8y ago
As an Australian it's horrifying to hear the US experience with 911. We dial 000, and the standard experience is that it's picked up straight away, you answer "Police, Ambulance, or Fire" and "State and Town" and you'll be speaking to a call-taker in less than half a minute. Every now and then something goes wrong (like a big cable gets cut) and the national Telco gets an appropriately huge flogging, but 99.9% of the time it's clockwork.
- cstrat 8y ago
  As an Australian who has never had to call 000... I am glad to hear that it works :)
  - thomasfedb 8y ago
    Best advice I can give when calling 000 - let the call-taker follow the script. There will be a point in the call when you can add extra info, but they have a list of things they have to ask before they can press 'Dispatch!', you'll both have a better time if you let them ask their questions in order.
    - cstrat 8y ago
      cheers, thats a good tip I hope I will remember if I ever need to call in.
austinshea 8y ago
https://info.rapidsos.com/blog/bringing-apple-device-location-to-911 https://info.rapidsos.com/blog/bringing-apple-device-locatio...
davidgh 8y ago
It was a holiday weekend nearly two years ago. I decided to take my family into the downtown area about an hour from our home to get away for a bit. I have a large family and hotel pools are always a draw. After an hour or two at the pool, the kids started getting out and toweling off. Our three-year-old took his life jacket off to to dry himself and my wife and I started gathering our things. Some of the kids were still in the hot tub so we weren’t exactly in a rush. After what felt like a very short period of time, my wife says “Where’s Zach?” in that motherly-urgent tone. Just as my eyes focused on the pool, I heard a shriek from my wife unlike anything I’ve ever heard in my life. There is our three-year-old boy, face down in the pool, absolutely still. I jumped in the pool and pulled him into my arms and set him on the deck on the opposite side of the pool. To this day I have no idea how I climbed out of that pool with him in my arms but I was in and out of that pool seconds. As I looked down at him - he was this awful, unnatural color and I knew we were in a very serious situation. I’m not a trained medical professional. Like most, I’ve had training on how to handle various emergency situations here and there, but nothing extensive. As I looked down at my still and lifeless son, I realized that the decisions I made in the next minute may be the difference between life and death. And I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’ve been in stressful situations before, but nothing like this. It was as if I was plucked from reality and placed into some type of metaphysical reality. I don’t know how to describe it. In some ways, I became incredibly focused. In other ways, I was completely dazed and confused. A couple things came to mind. 1) Call 911. 2) Administer CPR. I yelled out to my oldest teenage daughter to call 911. I told her to call from the hotel phone. Again - in this moment my thoughts were very scattered but I remember thinking that would be the most certain way to relay our location automatically. I had no idea the address or even the street we were on. At that moment I sincerely couldn’t say for certain if we were at the Hyatt, Hilton, Holiday or Hampton. If it was the Hyatt was it the Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Place or just the regular Hyatt? In my mind at least this though was clear: call from a land line and tell them to come and they will come even if you can’t tell them where you are. I began to administer CPR to my son. Was it breaths or then compressions, or the other way around? How many breaths? How many compressions? How long to I wait to see if he’s got a pulse? The adrenaline is so high there was no way I’d be able to distinguish a pulse with my shaking hands. I gave a couple breaths and started compressions. He was absolutely still. I hoped for the Hollywood-like water puke, cough. I got nothing. Repeat breaths, compressions. Nothing. Repeat. Nothing. I don’t know how much time had passed, but it felt like an eternity. Why wasn’t he responding to my actions?? Desperation quickly settled in - I don’t know what I’m doing and he will probably die because of it. More than ever I felt a desperate need of help. I look up and see my daughter scrambling around, still in the pool area. My wife is next to me, trying to help me administer. I scream out to my daughter in absolute desperation “you have to call 911 NOW!” My attention goes back to my son. Breaths. Compressions. Anything? No. Repeat. The scene around me was absolute mayhem. My other children, of various ages, were letting out blood curdling screams and moans. Whenever I bring myself back to the moment, it brings tears to my eyes. The kids didn’t know exactly what was happening, but they knew this was very, very bad. The daughter I had instructed to call 911 is very calculated, precise and responsible. I had told her to call 911 from a hotel phone because it was my thought that it was the best (only?) way to reliably provide our location to the responders. She was trying to do exactly that. But the problem was she was locked out of the hotel. She was fumbling through our towels and bags looking for the key card to her her back into the building. She couldn’t find it. It turns out it was in a very natural and obvious spot - my pocket - but in a moment like that, simple things are not always clear. I don’t realize it was in my pocket. She thought it was with our stuff and was digging to find it. In hindsight, I should have told her to call from her cell phone while looking for a hotel phone. I’m desperate. Help is not coming. What I’m doing doesn’t seem to be doing anything. Every tick of the clock the situation is getting worse. Tunnel vision was setting in. I cannot property articulate the feeing of absolute terror and paralysis that was setting in. “This is actually happening.” I don’t remember how, but eventually the key issue was resolved and my daughter got into the hotel and began her sprint to the front desk. She was met by the staff part way there. “911 is on the way”, they said. What? Why? We never called. It turns out, an off duty airline pilot was summoned to the window of his room due to the screaming below. Observing the situation, he summoned help. Around the same time, a nurse was checking into the hotel and had been told her room was not ready. She later told me she was frustrated and decided to take a walk. She passed by the pool area and came to our attention and started helping while the ambulance was making its way to us. At his point, I heard a faint - oh so faint - whimper from my son. Details are fuzzy to me at this point, but 911 arrived and whisked him off to the nearby children’s hospital. We spent a couple of days at the hospital. He made a full recovery and we were sent home with much gratitude, forever changed by the situation. I know these stories like this so often do not have a happy ending, and I am so, so sorry for the families and loved ones of those who experience other outcomes. A few thoughts that came to my mind after this experience. - A mobile phone has the ability to relay location very reliably, and more precisely than a phone registered to an address. A hotel is a big building - sure they might have guessed we were by the pool, but do the first responders know where in a massive hotel the pool is? Seconds matter. It sure would have been nice to know that all I had to do is call 911 from my mobile phone and say “please come” and they could respond with “we are on our way”. - I thought it would be helpful to have a 100% offline-capable, blazing fast, dead simple app with common emergency situations and what basic steps to take. In the state I was in, I’m not sure I would have thought to go to an app. But perhaps a bystander with such an app, even untrained, could use such an app to help coach a situation. - Why on earth was there no phone outside by the hotel pool? You won’t be surprised to know this particular hotel solved that problem. - This all unfolded within our “field of vision”. Our backs were not turned when our son went in the water. But we were focused on gathering our stuff, chatting with each other and just weren’t paying attention. We are different at pools now. - I’ve wondered if some type of device could be strapped to a toddler’s head that would sound off a close-by alarm if submerged for more than x seconds or of the device was removed. It would have to avoid going off with common splashes and quick dunks in the water. As I’ve carefully observed since, the forehead seems like a logical position for such a sensor. Little ones don’t go in below their forehead often for much longer than a few seconds, and in a drowning situation the forehead is always submerged. I fear that such a device, however, would provide aflame sense of security and perhaps would encourage worse supervision. I am very much looking forward to the day when I can be confident my mobile phone can relay my precise location to emergency responders.
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mseebach 8y ago
It would be quite useful in a general sense to develop a technique to transfer modest amounts of data over a voice call - location, obviously for 911, but also for plenty of other applications where installing an app (never mind developing it) is overkill. Such a technology could also be used for automatically transferring reservation/membership numbers when calling customer service, or even enabling some kind of secure challenge/response for calling your bank. I suppose it could work with some kind of low-speed acoustic modem combined with an "intents"-style protocol. You'd hear a short sequence of beeps, your phone would vibrate and show a dialog "Caller wants to know your GPS location", and when clicking OK, your phone would send back your location. In the other direction, when initiating a call with metadata, the receiving party would play a beep when ready (like a fax) and your phone would play off the metadata for the call -- this would basically be implemented like query string parameters on the phone number URL.
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345 points by chmaynard 8y ago

Good for Apple for helping to save lives. As someone who's had to wait for an ambulance while someone is dying I understand how horrible that wait is and how desperately you want them to get to you as quickly as possible. The second part of this however is to ensure it's not open to abuse (by criminals or the government) for non emergency calls.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
I’d like to see Apple help subsidize the cost of upgrading the software required in rural emergency call centers if it’s required to interoperate with this new feature (perhaps coming out of their corporate social responsibility budget).
- Rotten194 8y ago
  maybe apple could actually pay taxes and those could be used for the same benefit ;)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - abritinthebay 8y ago
    Apple does pay taxes. Want them to pay more? Vote.
- dpark 8y ago
  I mean, sure, if Apple wants to spend their money upgrading rural 911 call centers, good for them. But do you feel that it's reasonable to expect this, and if so, why?
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Because without the call center support, their marketing of it as a feature in iOS 12 is a moot point. “Look at this awesome life saving feature that only works in wealthy parts of the US!”
    - dpark 8y ago
      I don't grasp this logic. Apple builds a feature to help with 911 services so they should fund 911 services? Apple also implemented Amber Alert support. Should they fund the Amber Alert system, too? Aren't emergency services pretty clearly the government's job? You already pay a fee on your cell bill specifically to cover the cost of 911 services to your local and state governments.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Edit: Benjammer’s response is superior to mine. Yes, large device manufacturers should help fund the infrastructure they build product support into their products for. You might disagree with my opinion, but I don’t see the opinion as being wildly out of line. If Apple doesn’t fund it, and per mobile line 911 taxes don’t cover it, everyone’s taxes have to go up to support Apples enhanced feature and the marketing goodwill they’ll receive. Does that seem fair?
        dpark 8y ago
        I'm just at a loss. This is literally what taxes are for. If you want to argue that Apple et al should have to pay for their use of, e.g., GPS, I could understand that. (Not agree, but understand.) GPS has enabled high-value features to be built into Apple's products. On the other hand, Amber alert and 911 service support are literally mandated by the government. Apple cannot choose to not include them. (Though in this case, they could choose to not support RapidSOS, at least until it's mandated as well.) Edit: And yes, it seems entirely fair that taxes could go up to enable additional government services.
        8y ago
- Benjammer 8y ago
  Surprising but not surprising that this is getting so much hate on HN... So many people acting like public 911 municipal services should be expected to "out-compete" Apple, treating this like just another biz dev case study, like "Well, then why doesn't _the useless government_ upgrade their 911 to be as good as _Apple_ then, huh??

craftyguy 8y ago

> The approach developed by Apple and RapidSOS sends location data from an iPhone to a "clearinghouse" accessible to emergency calling centers. Only the 911 calling centers will be able to see the data during the call, and none of it can be used for non-emergency purposes, according to Apple. How long until this information is available to law enforcement?

Drakim 8y ago
PUBLIC RELATIONS PERSON: You don't understand, they aren't actively looking at the data so it's not spying. It's just being archived at our central servers for important future use, and any access is subject to warrants (for now). We are working with Google to bring this important life-saving terrorist-defeating child porn-detecting feature to Android. Think of the Children! (I really hope it only sends out the information exactly while the phone is calling 911. Maybe in the future we'll have big debates about whether people should be able to "walk dark" without a mobile tracking device in the streets.)
- abtinf 8y ago
  Why shouldn’t it be archived for future use?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Drakim 8y ago
    Why shouldn't all your traffic, location data, and thoughts be archived for future use? Maybe in 30 years we figure out you are one of the undesirables of society, and we'll have an easy time getting rid of you and your kind. It's a great boon for society to preserve all data.
    - abtinf 8y ago
      That is not the context of this news. The context here is recording pertinent information when a person chooses to request emergency law enforcement, medical, and fire services.

walterbell 8y ago

For anyone with the iOS12 beta, is there an opt-out for this system service in the Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services list? What happens if "Location Services" has been disabled by MDM policy, or was never enabled since the device was setup? On a new iOS11 device, if you decline to enable Location Services during setup, it stays disabled. Once enabled, it can no longer be disabled, and the system service "Share My Location" cannot be disabled, even if all other app and system services are blocked from accessing Location data.

abtinf 8y ago
In what circumstances would you want to contact 911 but not reveal your location?
- walterbell 8y ago
  The purpose of opt-out is: device owner decides when to opt-out device owner does not need to explain why Defaults serve common requirements. Opt-out serves everything else. At the scale of billions of devices, there can be millions of "edge cases" which need to opt-out of defaults, for contextual and time-variable reasons.
- vxNsr 8y ago
  Maybe you just don't want your location ever being sent to a gov agency no matter your predicament.
  - tzahola 8y ago
    Carriers know your approximate location all the time, even without this feature. If you don't want to be tracked, you must pull out your SIM card.
  - dpark 8y ago
    And yet here you are making a call on a cell phone. Turning off location services does not make your phone invisible on the cell network. Your provider knows with fair accuracy where your phone is at all times that it has service (and often even when it does not).

emptybits 8y ago

Will it be possible to make an anonymous 911 call? There can be scenarios, I think, where we (society) do not want to deter someone from reporting an emergency due to fear of being identified. Off the top of my head, consider a situation involving organized crime taking place, where call centre staff (or law enforcement) may be compelled to leak the identity of a witness.

bitL 8y ago
Get one of those credit card-sized phones like AIEK just for 911? They should be able to call 911 even without SIM card.
- vxNsr 8y ago
  Right, so that's not even remotely a plausible solution for the OPs senario.
  - bitL 8y ago
    Why not? Those phones can fit into a purse, they are really credit card-sized, don't look like phones at all, and 911 can anyway identify persons by their speech when they run them through any modern voice recognition system if they need to de-anonymize them.
    - vxNsr 8y ago
      Because the people who would be deterred from calling 911 to stay anonymous aren't the type to buy another phone expressly to call 911 anonymously. What global db do you envision that has everyone's accurate voice print?
      - bitL 8y ago
        We should not be naive. The tech is already there, I don't expect such DBs won't be built as it's already doable. And accuracy can be improved as algorithms get better.

rwmj 8y ago

I had to make a 999 call a few years back because I saw a woman faint and bang her head on a concrete pavement. Although I was in the local area which I know very well, it was really difficult - when put on the spot in an emergency - to describe my exact location.

Waterluvian 8y ago
Yeah. I regularly test myself when bored while driving to verbalize where I am. "Highway 401 East.. uhh I think I passed an exit for Guelph a while ago? I don't see a marker at the moment." Off topic: if you're often bored while driving, learn the NATO phonetic alphabet using license plates around you. It helps me four or five times a year when reading off things to people in customer service. The beauty of it is that people who don't know it can still understand it when said to them.
- MekaiGS 8y ago
  Hi to fellow KW/Guelph YC news reader :)
- balabaster 8y ago
  Do you know how many times I use the phonetic alphabet and then have to simplify even more because the person on the other end of the phone doesn't understand it? :D F for what? S? F is now Frank and S is now Sugar, because Foxtrot and Sierra often just get "was that s or f? What is Soxtrot?" it's ridiculous. I think everyone should be taught the NATO phonetic alphabet in school. When I'm talking to someone on the phone, I don't want to have to resort to Apple Banana Chocolate like we're all 5. Also, I live just down the road from Guelph and worked in Guelph for a while :)
  - kbenson 8y ago
    > When I'm talking to someone on the phone, I don't want to have to resort to Apple Banana Chocolate like we're all 5. So, the solution to not wanting to feel self conscious while saying decidedly simple and inoffensive words, and for task simple enough that people could probably be given a simple sentence or two instruction (choose a word that doesn't sound like another one) and could come up with valid examples (like you just did), is to force them to learn a semi-universal and generic set of mostly nonsense words and names? I did tech support for years, and any time I had to have someone type out a specific set of characters, it was not hard to just rely on common names, animals, or other extremely common words. The amount of wasted man-years in teaching and testing a phonetic alphabet for such little benefit would be mind boggling. The military has very specific requirements which change the cost benefit analysis greatly (verbal communication during battle conditions, for one), but those don't really apply to most people. It's trivial to come up with something that works well on the fly.

ape4 8y ago

I was expecting it was going to be sent as tones in the voice call.

joecool1029 8y ago

I must be missing something, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1 Hasn't 911 location been shared via gps location in pretty much every cellphone for the past decade? I remember shitty verizon kyocera clamshells advertising gps for 911 in like 2004.

jaxbot 8y ago
No. It's possible that this information has been available, but the connection to the end operator depends on local, non-standard setups. I once called 911 to report a passed out individual in Central Park. I tried relaying landmarks, lamp post #s, etc. Eventually it turns out the operator needed "5th and 80th, but in the park" to clear their prompt and dispatch an ambulance. This is on a relatively new dispatch system, too, that for some reason doesn't support GPS coordinates.
scrooched_moose 8y ago
The accuracy and timing requirements are terrible and still use some combination of radio location and raw cellular data. Some extracts from the article you linked: > Wireless network operators must provide the latitude and longitude of callers within 300 meters, within six minutes of a request by a PSAP. > Code division multiple access (CDMA) networks tend to use handset-based radiolocation technologies, which are technically more similar to radionavigation. > Mobile phone users may also have a selection to permit location information to be sent to non-emergency phone numbers or data networks, so that it can help people who are simply lost or want other location-based services. Presumably Apple is going to share their Wifi-assisted data instead of raw GPS signal or radiolocation data. Looking at my location in a dense urban zone, 300m would narrow my location down to roughly 300 houses. Good enough to get emergency services on the way, not nearly good enough to render assistance if the caller can't speak/doesn't know where they are.

rando444 8y ago

For those not aware, enhanced 911 / 112 has existed in some way shape or form for almost the past 20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1

GeekyBear 8y ago
More specifically, this is an implementation of Enhanced 911, Phase 2. Support for Phase 2 will be required in the US next year. 911 service has gone through a few different capability upgrades. Basic 911: You communicate the nature of the emergency and it's location by voice. Enhanced 911: The call center receives your landline phone number and looks up your address from a database. E911 Phase 1: The call center receives the mobile phone number and the location of the cell tower taking the call. E911 Phase 2: The call center receives the mobile phone number and the phone's location. http://www.marioncoks.net/Departments/EmergencyCommunications/WhatisPhaseIIEnhanced911/tabid/7542/Default.aspx http://www.marioncoks.net/Departments/EmergencyCommunication... Apple is simply implementing the new standard here.

josefresco 8y ago

I'm reading almost near universal praise. Isn't this essentially a "back door" to location services, only accessible to law enforcement? Sounds ... familiar. It gets worse/better(?) Apple's upcoming 911 feature relies on technology from RapidSOS, a New York startup. The approach developed by Apple and RapidSOS sends location data from an iPhone to a "clearinghouse" accessible to emergency calling centers. Only the 911 calling centers will be able to see the data during the call, and none of it can be used for non-emergency purposes, according to Apple. So Apple AND RapidSOS get to see my location when using 911? Cool cool.

ForrestN 8y ago
If the text you quoted is accurate, the data is only accessible to emergency calling centers, so no, unless they are lying neither company can see your location. Perhaps it’s encrypted, a bit like sending an iMessage to the 9/11 dispatcher, or some other means of anonymization is used.
- josefresco 8y ago
  the data is only accessible to emergency calling centers This same argument is use to justify why we shouldn't allow encryption back doors. The reasons include: access will leak, law enforcement cannot be trusted. I don't see anything in this announcement that addresses those concerns.
  - jonknee 8y ago
    The location is also only sent during the 911 call, so if you don't dial 911 your location isn't in the database and the security of the database doesn't matter, your location is "safe". https://info.rapidsos.com/blog/bringing-apple-device-location-to-911 https://info.rapidsos.com/blog/bringing-apple-device-locatio... > When this feature is made available later this year in an iOS software update, Apple phones will send fast and accurate device location to the NG911 Clearinghouse when a user dials 9-1-1.
    - 8y ago

microcolonel 8y ago

Seems like it would be better for this to be transmitted in-band, like caller ID. This is a good step though.

ensignavenger 8y ago

How does this differ from the existing system? I thought your cell carrier would already use GPS if it was available to communicate your location to the 911 call center, and route it to the appropriate call center?

VonGuard 8y ago

Oakland needs this help so badly. Call 911 on a cell in Oakland, and you're going to wait on hold for 30 minutes, most of which will be you being transfered to the wrong departments over and over. You start at a call center somewhere in middle America with a person who does not know where Oakland is. They pass you to CA CHP, who don't know Oakland either, because their dispatcher on the line is out of Sacramento. Finally, you get dumped to the local 911, which is overwhelmed, has long hold times, and sometimes even hangs up on you. Just FYI, if you are ever in Oakland and have trouble, DO NOT CALL 911. Call the police directly at 510-777-3333 This Oakland 911 problem is, I think, the biggest single technical problem with Oakland as a whole, and it's been this way for 20 years...

philip1209 8y ago
SF 911 hold times are ridiculous. On two occasions (out of about four ever) I abandoned the call after being on hold for 5+ minutes.
core-questions 8y ago
Let's say 911 there got staffed up and got resources to handle the call volume. Would this actually translate to better emergency services response? One assumes they're also all busy, all the time, no?
- detaro 8y ago
  High-priority call that makes it through to a dispatcher at least has a chance to be "triaged" and responders from something less urgent pulled for it?
  - core-questions 8y ago
    Mmm, good point. Still, I'd bet that the money would be better spent beefing up policing / emergency service efforts instead of giving them even more work that they'll never get to. That said, I'd never feel safe living somewhere where 911 didn't answer immediately and have an average response time within a few minutes.

bungie4 8y ago

I work in 911, Telematics, alarm, PERS space. We are a PSAP (Public Safety Answer Point) The device might send a Geocode, but reverse geo-coding (turning a long/lat into a human readable place) is a highly inaccurate thing. Secondly, most responders have no means of turning a long/lat into a point on the map, short of using their personal phone. Next, altitude is not factored in. Imagine being in a downtown office building. If nobody is downstairs to guide responders, or if the caller was unable to speak, they will have a really difficult time determining just which building/floor you are in. Its all gotten much worse with the advent of mobile/VOIP and now, WIFI phone systems where your phone can move. Its a system ill equipped to handle it.

Terretta 8y ago
> ”reverse geo-coding, turning a lat/long into a human readable place highly inaccurate ... no means of turning a lat/long into a point on the map” Three words for you ... https://what3words.com https://what3words.com
- antsar 8y ago
  That helps with communicating the lat/long, but not with determining where that actually is. With what3words, not only are first responders still required to use some mobile device, but they're also reliant on a proprietary service (read: point of failure).
  - bungie4 8y ago
    Exactly.
  - matte_black 8y ago
    There should be no point of failure. By using the same hashing algorithm to produce 3 words worldwide, anyone with the same seed could produce coordinates for any words. Or the 3 words for any coordinates.
- tpetry 8y ago
  But navigation systems in an car do work on streetnames and numbers ;)

gregsadetsky 8y ago

This is an extraordinarily important and interesting “space” ripe for innovation. A few weeks ago, I was awarded one of the highest civilian public awards from the Commandant of the US Coast Guard in DC for my volunteer web mapping work during Harvey. That work helped coordinate 700 helicopter sorties and save 1700 lives. I’ve been thinking — and talking with Emergency Responders — about what an up to date 911 would look like. Location is a huge part of it. Texting, sending images and videos would also be on the timeline. Consider how much real-time location info — and live HD video streams — can 1 mobile phone produce, and how close to none of that is available in an emergency situation. Consider how 911 is but one service, and that this is a worldwide problem. And that smartphones are worldwide too, and that there’s hundreds of millions of them. I’m starting to plan out next steps. Connecting smartphones and emergency responders. Being a worldwide emergency digital-first dispatch service. Imagine!

briandear 8y ago
Congrats on your award and thanks for your Harvey work. As a former Houstonian, that event is close to my heart.
bovine3dom 8y ago
There's some work in this area already, e.g. https://www.goodsamapp.org/ https://www.goodsamapp.org/.
- gregsadetsky 8y ago
  Thanks for the link. I think that this needs to be on mobile OS level to be effective. The good news is that there are only 2 major ones. See https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/ https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/ and the 112 (the EU’s 911) work on AML. That service, piggybacking on SMS to send location, is supported by both Android and iOS but is only available in a few countries.
bungie4 8y ago
Yup. But the issue is a financial one, not a technological one. All manner of things can be accomplished at the origin. But all the other links in the chain must have access to the companion technology (read money). This is just not available on a widespread basis. Then, you have issues of adoption, and, competing services and standards. We are experiencing this very thing with regards to Fire dispatch, with all manner of fireman 'apps'. All of which are different with different protocols. So much so, that we now refuse to support any of them.

dbcooperlives 8y ago

I have been deploying e911 call taking systems for more than 10 years. All the areas that I service have been getting pretty accurate location data on mobile callers since I started. Initially, the providers send the location of the tower they are on and the triangulation data with the call. A couple of seconds later they will send more accurate GPS coordinates for most calls, which are usually pretty good. Sometimes there are issues where a provider will send a call to the wrong PSAP because the users location is unclear. This is usually fixed if the 911 operator rebids the call... it will be routed correctly almost 100% the second time and is generally quicker than a manual attended transfer. I am not saying that they couldn't do better, but this article insinuates there is some kind of major problem where there isn't. All that being said, people with specific risk situations (an elderly parent they care for or a disabled child for example) should call the business line for your local 911 public safety answering point and have them add specific information to the file associated with your number.

jonknee 8y ago
> I am not saying that they couldn't do better, but this article insinuates there is some kind of major problem where there isn't. That's great that where you are it seems to work well, but it's a big country and Apple is in a much better position to know if meaningful improvements can be made nationwide (and it sounds like they're not going for "pretty good", but for "best possible"). Also, RapidSOS seems to be targeting urban areas where GPS is notoriously spotty.
dingaling 8y ago
> A couple of seconds later they will send more accurate GPS coordinates for most calls I wish my day-to-day GPS initialised and obtained an initial fix that quickly. Usually it needs at least five minutes, sometimes over an hour. From an earlier job I vaguely remember that a NavStar cold-fix requires two or three minutes at a minimum with optimal conditions.
- 21 8y ago
  Maybe you just need a new phone/device? With each new phone I had faster and faster GPS lock time.

wintorez 8y ago

I'm OK with this.

LinuxBender 8y ago

Cell phones have been sending gps coordinates since 1997 as part of the e911 project. Support for it was a hardware requirement in GSM phones in '98 and was supposed to be in all phones shortly after that. Who dropped the ball?

mcculley 8y ago

Today I had to call AAA to request a tow truck. I called from my cell phone and the automated system told me that it was determining my location from the cell towers and using that to route me to the best place. How does that work? I have worked with Twilio but I don't see any API for getting a caller's location. Is that something available with different providers?

tedmiston 8y ago
Pretty sure what they're using is just cell tower triangulation. At least in my experience, they also ask you to describe your location more precisely as well.
- mcculley 8y ago
  I get that they are using cell tower triangulation. I'm wondering what API allows AAA to get that information from the incoming call. Do they have some system talking SS7? Can smaller players build something similar?

npx 8y ago

I went to elementary school with the founder of RapidSOS and it's pretty cool to see one of us country boys making the front page of HN! If I'm being objective about this, I think it's a fairly good idea in the abstract but it will be very difficult to monetize. Where I grew up, there are still huge gaps in cellular coverage and this won't help people who can't even make a call. I do think there is a there there but it's fraught with peril. That said, best of luck to Michael! At the very least, his heart is in the right place.

chicob 8y ago

I see this pattern more often, whenever new tracking systems are deployed with little to no discussion, be it 911 or eCall: it is for our own good.

bpowah 8y ago

Undoubtedly desperately needed tech, but I don't understand why the geolocation couldn't be embedded in the voice call itself (14.4k modem style). It's such a tiny amount of data, it wouldn't need to interfere with the call at all, or necessarily even be audible. Why the need for a "clearinghouse" and a third-party private company service lock-in by already stretched emergency services?

thomasfedb 8y ago

As an Australian it's horrifying to hear the US experience with 911. We dial 000, and the standard experience is that it's picked up straight away, you answer "Police, Ambulance, or Fire" and "State and Town" and you'll be speaking to a call-taker in less than half a minute. Every now and then something goes wrong (like a big cable gets cut) and the national Telco gets an appropriately huge flogging, but 99.9% of the time it's clockwork.

cstrat 8y ago
As an Australian who has never had to call 000... I am glad to hear that it works :)
- thomasfedb 8y ago
  Best advice I can give when calling 000 - let the call-taker follow the script. There will be a point in the call when you can add extra info, but they have a list of things they have to ask before they can press 'Dispatch!', you'll both have a better time if you let them ask their questions in order.
  - cstrat 8y ago
    cheers, thats a good tip I hope I will remember if I ever need to call in.

austinshea 8y ago

https://info.rapidsos.com/blog/bringing-apple-device-location-to-911 https://info.rapidsos.com/blog/bringing-apple-device-locatio...

davidgh 8y ago

It was a holiday weekend nearly two years ago. I decided to take my family into the downtown area about an hour from our home to get away for a bit. I have a large family and hotel pools are always a draw. After an hour or two at the pool, the kids started getting out and toweling off. Our three-year-old took his life jacket off to to dry himself and my wife and I started gathering our things. Some of the kids were still in the hot tub so we weren’t exactly in a rush. After what felt like a very short period of time, my wife says “Where’s Zach?” in that motherly-urgent tone. Just as my eyes focused on the pool, I heard a shriek from my wife unlike anything I’ve ever heard in my life. There is our three-year-old boy, face down in the pool, absolutely still. I jumped in the pool and pulled him into my arms and set him on the deck on the opposite side of the pool. To this day I have no idea how I climbed out of that pool with him in my arms but I was in and out of that pool seconds. As I looked down at him - he was this awful, unnatural color and I knew we were in a very serious situation. I’m not a trained medical professional. Like most, I’ve had training on how to handle various emergency situations here and there, but nothing extensive. As I looked down at my still and lifeless son, I realized that the decisions I made in the next minute may be the difference between life and death. And I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’ve been in stressful situations before, but nothing like this. It was as if I was plucked from reality and placed into some type of metaphysical reality. I don’t know how to describe it. In some ways, I became incredibly focused. In other ways, I was completely dazed and confused. A couple things came to mind. 1) Call 911. 2) Administer CPR. I yelled out to my oldest teenage daughter to call 911. I told her to call from the hotel phone. Again - in this moment my thoughts were very scattered but I remember thinking that would be the most certain way to relay our location automatically. I had no idea the address or even the street we were on. At that moment I sincerely couldn’t say for certain if we were at the Hyatt, Hilton, Holiday or Hampton. If it was the Hyatt was it the Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Place or just the regular Hyatt? In my mind at least this though was clear: call from a land line and tell them to come and they will come even if you can’t tell them where you are. I began to administer CPR to my son. Was it breaths or then compressions, or the other way around? How many breaths? How many compressions? How long to I wait to see if he’s got a pulse? The adrenaline is so high there was no way I’d be able to distinguish a pulse with my shaking hands. I gave a couple breaths and started compressions. He was absolutely still. I hoped for the Hollywood-like water puke, cough. I got nothing. Repeat breaths, compressions. Nothing. Repeat. Nothing. I don’t know how much time had passed, but it felt like an eternity. Why wasn’t he responding to my actions?? Desperation quickly settled in - I don’t know what I’m doing and he will probably die because of it. More than ever I felt a desperate need of help. I look up and see my daughter scrambling around, still in the pool area. My wife is next to me, trying to help me administer. I scream out to my daughter in absolute desperation “you have to call 911 NOW!” My attention goes back to my son. Breaths. Compressions. Anything? No. Repeat. The scene around me was absolute mayhem. My other children, of various ages, were letting out blood curdling screams and moans. Whenever I bring myself back to the moment, it brings tears to my eyes. The kids didn’t know exactly what was happening, but they knew this was very, very bad. The daughter I had instructed to call 911 is very calculated, precise and responsible. I had told her to call 911 from a hotel phone because it was my thought that it was the best (only?) way to reliably provide our location to the responders. She was trying to do exactly that. But the problem was she was locked out of the hotel. She was fumbling through our towels and bags looking for the key card to her her back into the building. She couldn’t find it. It turns out it was in a very natural and obvious spot - my pocket - but in a moment like that, simple things are not always clear. I don’t realize it was in my pocket. She thought it was with our stuff and was digging to find it. In hindsight, I should have told her to call from her cell phone while looking for a hotel phone. I’m desperate. Help is not coming. What I’m doing doesn’t seem to be doing anything. Every tick of the clock the situation is getting worse. Tunnel vision was setting in. I cannot property articulate the feeing of absolute terror and paralysis that was setting in. “This is actually happening.” I don’t remember how, but eventually the key issue was resolved and my daughter got into the hotel and began her sprint to the front desk. She was met by the staff part way there. “911 is on the way”, they said. What? Why? We never called. It turns out, an off duty airline pilot was summoned to the window of his room due to the screaming below. Observing the situation, he summoned help. Around the same time, a nurse was checking into the hotel and had been told her room was not ready. She later told me she was frustrated and decided to take a walk. She passed by the pool area and came to our attention and started helping while the ambulance was making its way to us. At his point, I heard a faint - oh so faint - whimper from my son. Details are fuzzy to me at this point, but 911 arrived and whisked him off to the nearby children’s hospital. We spent a couple of days at the hospital. He made a full recovery and we were sent home with much gratitude, forever changed by the situation. I know these stories like this so often do not have a happy ending, and I am so, so sorry for the families and loved ones of those who experience other outcomes. A few thoughts that came to my mind after this experience. - A mobile phone has the ability to relay location very reliably, and more precisely than a phone registered to an address. A hotel is a big building - sure they might have guessed we were by the pool, but do the first responders know where in a massive hotel the pool is? Seconds matter. It sure would have been nice to know that all I had to do is call 911 from my mobile phone and say “please come” and they could respond with “we are on our way”. - I thought it would be helpful to have a 100% offline-capable, blazing fast, dead simple app with common emergency situations and what basic steps to take. In the state I was in, I’m not sure I would have thought to go to an app. But perhaps a bystander with such an app, even untrained, could use such an app to help coach a situation. - Why on earth was there no phone outside by the hotel pool? You won’t be surprised to know this particular hotel solved that problem. - This all unfolded within our “field of vision”. Our backs were not turned when our son went in the water. But we were focused on gathering our stuff, chatting with each other and just weren’t paying attention. We are different at pools now. - I’ve wondered if some type of device could be strapped to a toddler’s head that would sound off a close-by alarm if submerged for more than x seconds or of the device was removed. It would have to avoid going off with common splashes and quick dunks in the water. As I’ve carefully observed since, the forehead seems like a logical position for such a sensor. Little ones don’t go in below their forehead often for much longer than a few seconds, and in a drowning situation the forehead is always submerged. I fear that such a device, however, would provide aflame sense of security and perhaps would encourage worse supervision. I am very much looking forward to the day when I can be confident my mobile phone can relay my precise location to emergency responders.

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mseebach 8y ago

It would be quite useful in a general sense to develop a technique to transfer modest amounts of data over a voice call - location, obviously for 911, but also for plenty of other applications where installing an app (never mind developing it) is overkill. Such a technology could also be used for automatically transferring reservation/membership numbers when calling customer service, or even enabling some kind of secure challenge/response for calling your bank. I suppose it could work with some kind of low-speed acoustic modem combined with an "intents"-style protocol. You'd hear a short sequence of beeps, your phone would vibrate and show a dialog "Caller wants to know your GPS location", and when clicking OK, your phone would send back your location. In the other direction, when initiating a call with metadata, the receiving party would play a beep when ready (like a fax) and your phone would play off the metadata for the call -- this would basically be implemented like query string parameters on the phone number URL.

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