11 ms·

False 911 Calls Increase During Festival as iOS Mistakes Dancing for Car Crashes

139 points by KomoD 3y ago

michaericalribo 3y ago
First skiing, now this -- you'd think Apple would get their act together and come up with a better solution than "turn it off"
- M4v3R 3y ago
  It also got triggered on roller coasters: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/09/iphone-14-crash-detection-on-rollercoaster/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/09/iphone-14-crash-detecti...
  - tempodox 3y ago
    I can believe that a roller coaster ride has similarities with a car crash, in terms of acceleration, but dancing?
    - automatic6131 3y ago
      Dancing with a phone in your hand (like an old ipod advert) absolutely.
      - zamfi 3y ago
        Or worse, a pocket: phone floats up with you as you jump, then starts to freefall, then slams hard against your rising pocket.
    - zython 3y ago
      What kind of rollercoaster ride has more than ~10-20 g forces ? I could see how "negative" g forces could lead to a false positive but I think the absolute forces are too low. On the other hand I could see how during dancing the phone gets thrown around and that may be a similar pattern to a car crash.
      - eimrine 3y ago
        > What kind of rollercoaster ride has more than ~10-20 g forces ? I suppose that a regular crash but with a lucky ending can do a significant damage to phone in the pocket, because while the body is losing speed slowly, the phone and other things in pocket can hit the road hardly and ricochet with insane acceleration. I am a fan of downhill but I never carry my phone during that kind of ride when I am acknowledged about high chances of my crash. And in that risky kind of event I would rather go bombing the hill with a friend who can give me a proper help than rely on some computer.
    - FinnKuhn 3y ago
      Maybe in a bag you are swinging around or more likely in a Moshpit (rapid acceleration with a sudden stop)
- kotaKat 3y ago
  To Apple's 100% credit they were willing to ship engineers out. This happened day 1 (Thursday) of a 4-day festival. Even though they declined to have Apple come out you know they still sent a couple engineers out to gather data regardless. On top of that, being proactive once it started happening and getting messaging out to attendees helped cut down the calls by ~50%, which definitely helped. All you can do is continually refine it once you deploy it. A bit damned if you do, damned if you don't.
  - gdulli 3y ago
    You're not damned if you practice judgment that keeps you from using machine learning anywhere just because you can, inflicting others with the hassle of inevitable false positives, false negatives, and false sense of security in a solution that will remain flawed regardless of your own level of patience to throw new versions out.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    > All you can do is continually refine it once you deploy it. A bit damned if you do, damned if you don't you could also get it to work with fewer false positives before deploying it, so more like damned if you do rush to market without proper testing and not-damned if you're thoughtful and do minimal testing first (which would obviously include dancing) or, alternatively, just don't deploy and keep deployed a feature which fails so often and for which failures have such a significant impact on people
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      >you could also get it to work with fewer false positives before deploying it I'm sure they did.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        "fewer" obviously means fewer than it has now: the amount it currently has is too many, the amount it needs to have is fewer than the amount it currently has this means they either didn't get it to work with fewer false positives than it has, or they did, then they discarded those improvements, leading to the inadequate release we have now (in which, again, the amount of false positives is too many)
hospitalJail 3y ago
I can only imagine that if I rushed a product to market that cost taxpayers thousands of dollars an interrupted emergency services, I'd be in serious trouble. But when you are famous, they just let you do it.
- vkou 3y ago
  Would you? We have a piss-poor track record of holding 'job creators' accountable for direct harm to our communities, let alone two-steps removed indirect harm.
- taeric 3y ago
  It doesn't take a lot of searching to find this feature giving a pretty large benefit, though? That is, be careful not to strawman this such that they can't have any false positives. Do keep on them to make it ever better, of course.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - avgDev 3y ago
    The problem is when stuff like this happens, it is hard to say how many individuals died or have been negatively affected due to resources having issues getting to the right individuals. If dancing can make an iphone call 911, then Apple has not done their job. You cannot achieve g-forces dancing anywhere close to a serious crash. This is pathetic and unacceptable.
    - crubier 3y ago
      > You cannot achieve g-forces dancing anywhere close to a serious crash You absolutely can, remember, the phone is recording the accelerations of the phone, not the acceleration of your brain or car or anything heavy.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nazgulsenpai 3y ago
I just want to point out that the festival poster in the article has a band named DIARRHEA PLANET. This has significantly improved my mood.
kypro 3y ago
How on Earth are you ever going to reliably prevent false positives for a feature like this while still reliably detecting crashes? I mean realistically unless you have a clear visual of the crash it's going to be very hard to tell a car crash from a loud noise + movement alone. Really they should be asking you if you want to enable "crash detection" before setting off and it should remain disabled at all other times. If you can already ensure the user is in a car and then the phone happens to sense something like a crash then chances are much greater that it's actually a crash.
- ben7799 3y ago
  Apple's solution or hardware is just half baked. The G-forces in a crash are much higher than dancing. Other implementations are better. I carry an iPhone when I go biking, and I have a Garmin GPS. The Garmin crash detection works far better. The Garmin is tuned well enough to go off on a real crash mountain biking but won't go off if you have an accident that's not a full fall. I have had a very "real" crash and seen the Garmin correctly identify it and the iPhone does not.
- cowsup 3y ago
  An easy way would be to calculate your speed ahead of time. If I’m going 55 mph (90 km/h), there’s a loud noise, and the phone gets jolted a bit, then it can check the distance it’s traveled for the next 3-4 seconds. If it’s clear that it’s not moving anymore, then it can begin alerting me; no response, it calls 911. Apple currently checks your location periodically, so it can fulfill location-based reminder requests, so I honestly figured a similar tech was used for the crash detection. I’m pretty surprised that that’s not the case.
  - Filligree 3y ago
    > Apple currently checks your location periodically, so it can fulfill location-based reminder requests, so I honestly figured a similar tech was used for the crash detection. I’m pretty surprised that that’s not the case. GPS positioning at least used to be power-hungry, to the point it couldn't be run continuously. I'm not sure if that's still the case, but it could be a factor.
blueflow 3y ago
Make it an legal offense to butt-dial. Its basically a DDoS on the emergency hotline, so why not?
- nazgulsenpai 3y ago
  They're not butt-dialing 911, the iPhone/Watch is automatically calling 911 because it "detected an automobile crash"
rootusrootus 3y ago
I think as Android and iOS release these new automated emergency reporting features, it should not tie up the existing voice-based 911 system. Maybe it goes to a call center where humans can interpret what they're seeing first. Or maybe we have a standardized API by which these devices can report directly to 911. But tying up a voice operator talking to a computer seems like a real waste of resources. I'm assuming that's what's happening, maybe I'm completely wrong.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  At least the Android version requires manual input (pressing the power button five times in quick succession) but as reported some people seem to do that accidentally somehow (bad power button, I guess?). It's crazy what large tech companies are allowed to do with public infrastructure. I bet you an app from a small developer would get cease and desisted within a month if it had false positives like these. At least put some of your own operators on the line first so you can verify that the emergency services are actually needed, and maybe don't even roll out the feature in areas that don't opt into receiving these automated alerts.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    > the Android version requires manual input That feature is identical to iPhone's SOS call feature, but I think it has gotten recent coverage for false positives. I don't recall hearing that Apple's implementation has had the same level of false positives. In this most recent situation it is crash detection, which I -think- Android also has, or at least Pixel phones do, but I don't know if they've had false positive problems.
    - Phrodo_00 3y ago
      > which I -think- Android also has, or at least Pixel phones do Yes, Pixel launched the feature on 2019. I didn't really find articles about false positives, but that's not at all empirical.
  - INTPenis 3y ago
nradov 3y ago
This is a hard engineering problem to solve. Garmin bike computers and fitness trackers have a similar incident detection feature which uses the accelerometer. It doesn't automatically call 911 but it will automatically text designated emergency contacts via a Bluetooth link to your smartphone if it thinks you crashed your bike or something. I have had a few false positives when making hard stops on rough surfaces. Fortunately I was able to cancel the alert before it sent a message. https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=RfaXahBWkH8Q7pVFLsuUmA https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=RfaXahBWkH8Q7pVFLsuUmA
- dncornholio 3y ago
  I don't think it's a problem at all. Phones shouldn't be doing automatic crash detection. Problem solved. I have a feeling this creates more problems than they solve. A computer should never reach out to emergency calls without the user pressing something.
  - nradov 3y ago
    In a real emergency the user might be unconscious or otherwise unable to push a button.
    - supertrope 3y ago
      Then they need a private monitoring service to call them before 911 is called. The current level of public safety resources cannot handle robocalls to 911.
  - aksss 3y ago
    I like loose coupling. The car or bike computer handles crash detection and uses phone for its communications (calling or texting). The reality though is that the phone is the bike computer or functionally the car CMU for a lot of people.
pengaru 3y ago
That sure is some car crash when it just keeps shaking all night... trash
cj 3y ago
How much of a nuisance is this in reality? From what I've heard, 911 operators regularly get people calling them for non-emergencies. The 911 operator's job is to judge whether the caller is actually reporting a legitimate emergency, and if so, route the report to the correct emergency personnel (fire/police/ambulance/etc) OR disregard the report as a non-emergency. The end of the article seems to confirm the false positives didn't actually have any real negative impact. So legitimate emergencies were not drowned out by the accidental dialing. > Thankfully, that wasn’t enough false 911 calls to overwhelm the local system and prevent responders from dealing with real emergencies that weekend, and with the help of festival organizers, the local authorities were able to locate the source of every false 911 call to determine that no actual emergencies were being reported. Obviously eliminating false positives would be ideal. But if the false positives aren't overloading 911 operators, seems like maybe a non-issue? Especially if these things can be predicted, e.g. local emergency personell should be aware of a local festival anyway (and can be on alert for these false positives, assuming it's not so bad as to drown out actual emergencies). Many people have an irrational fear of dialing 911. If you do it right now, someone will pickup the phone, and if you simply say "Sorry, I didn't mean to dial!" you won't get in trouble and the 911 operator will gladly let you off the line.
- short_throw 3y ago
  If no one speaks than you can't differentiate a false alarm from someone who can't breathe, or is hiding from an attacker, or is too hurt to put the phone to their ear. It's a massive nuisance unless someone gets on to say it was a mistake...and if someone didn't notice their phone buzzing before it made the call they aren't gonna pick up.
  - jon-wood 3y ago
    This system doesn’t just open a voice line to 999, it dials 999 and then plays an automated message saying something along the lines of “The owner of this iPhone may have been involved in a crash, the device is currently located at [location]” and then repeats it a few times. Ideally there’d be a better system for this where 999 can be notified in a machine readable format allowing them to filter out automated calls from known sites that are generating false positives, but it’s not like the operators don’t have information to work from. It’s also possible operators could (maybe they already can) see which mobile cell the call came from, which would also help rule out false alerts because they’d be flagged as coming from the vicinity of a festival. Generally for large events 999 are going to contact the organisers and let them know they need to send out a first aid team anyway, they’re not going to automatically despatch an ambulance without someone having confirmed the need for one.
noodlesUK 3y ago
I think one of the things that other posters are alluding to is that the phone can experience very significant forces if you are dancing, especially if it is being held in something like a purse or other bag that's flying around wildly as you dance (or if the phone is dropped). I'm pretty sure that if I threw my phone in a bag and caught it by the strap, it would experience far more G force than in any ordinary car crash, and if it is surrounded by screaming and general chaos, I think it's making a fairly understandable decision. The sensor fusion algorithms get confused by this, and the phone decides to call 911. It displays a notification for 10 seconds, then it starts a further 10 second countdown where it buzzes at maximum power and plays a siren noise at maximum volume. Under normal circumstances a reasonable person would notice these very loud alerts, and cancel the call. In a festival scenario where the users are deafened by other noises and possibly drunk/high, you might not notice. The phone then makes a call to 911. How would you alternatively design a system that calls emergency services in a crash? Where would you personally choose to calibrate the false positive/false negative rate? These are hard design choices, and there will always be incorrect detections with any automated system like this.
- recursive 3y ago
  > How would you alternatively design a system that calls emergency services in a crash? I'd put it in the car. Make it use the same sensor as airbag deployment.
  - noodlesUK 3y ago
    I think that's probably the best way to do something like this, but it certainly won't have the reach of putting the feature in people's phones. Only newer cars with the feature would be able to make the call. I think it would make sense to require some feature like this as part of the standard safety equipment on a new car. I'm pretty sure that this iPhone feature has and will save lives, and it may also risk them due to resource mismanagement.
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      > ... but it certainly won't have the reach of putting the feature in people's phones. I think this may be another job for Bayes. Apple's algorithm may be very accurate at detecting car crashes when there are car crashes, but most of the time there are not car crashes. As a result it may actually be super inaccurate at the 'population' level. So while it may have the reach, the incidence of false positives and the infrastructure misallocation may yield worse outcomes than not having the system in the first place.
bob1029 3y ago
This whole iOS dialing 911 thing reminds me of the technology connections video on LED street lights. A perfect case of good intentions all around but with some emergent caveats that could not have been foreseen until the final result was in place. In the case of LED street lighting, a mild compromise or patch-around makes sense. In the case of your phone automatically dialing emergency services, the game theory seems a bit more difficult to mediate. At this point I feel like the best course of action is to back out the feature. Adding a "are you sure" button to prevent a false dialing might as well just be turning it off. Making it less sensitive - effectively the same (maybe worse if you expect to rely on it). There really isn't a fundamental way to save this without yet-more-complexity. The user's intention will be betrayed from the perspective of their device in some percent of cases. You will never be able to solve this 100%. Now the real question is, are we comfortable with some % error rate? Probably yes. A crank call to 911 isn't like an airbag going off unprovoked or your car deciding a plastic bag floating on the freeway is good cause to engage full emergency braking.
mydriasis 3y ago
That's a way to earn some bragging rights -- "I was going so hard that my phone thought I was dying and called an ambulance"
ufmace 3y ago
I wonder what happens when people start taking these things into mosh pits. I would also think it's pretty easy to dismiss on the 911 operator side. Hey reported car crash. Oh wait, the location is in the middle of a dance club. Guess it's just another false positive.
- aksss 3y ago
  Been there, done that. Why would you think that has yet to start? Never had a problem with the phone auto-dialing 911 in this scenario personally. Maybe a difference is that people in the pit are more likely to have phone in pocket, whereas dancers are more likely to be holding phone in hand (cuz generally more likely to want it at the ready for selfies, etc?). I imagine that a phone’s accelerometer, when at the end of a moment arm (or literal arm in this scenario), is going to have a wilder experience than when held closer to the center of mass.
Havoc 3y ago
And yesterday there was a similar story about android. Feels like these automated emergency things should go into a 2nd lower priority queue if they’re so low signal to noise ratio. Else it drowns out the higher quality sig/noise actual calls
- taeric 3y ago
  Or, it is a case of shark attacks making the news? Notable that not a single story that has been reported has mentioned places getting overwhelmed with calls from this.
activiation 3y ago
Hopefully apple gets heavily fined for this non-sense
nekoashide 3y ago
It must be from slam dancing, moshing, ect. Sometimes it can get down right violent but most people are respectful but I can see how it can be set off and ignored as bodies are being slammed around.
coding123 3y ago
Instead of Apple making a device and trying to convince all car makers to adopt it, they are putting it in phones. To sell phones. It shows that all our companies are in it for money and not for saving your life. There's no reason a feature like this needs to be in a phone. It should be in a car. Only

139 points by KomoD 3y ago

First skiing, now this -- you'd think Apple would get their act together and come up with a better solution than "turn it off"

M4v3R 3y ago
It also got triggered on roller coasters: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/09/iphone-14-crash-detection-on-rollercoaster/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/09/iphone-14-crash-detecti...
- tempodox 3y ago
  I can believe that a roller coaster ride has similarities with a car crash, in terms of acceleration, but dancing?
  - automatic6131 3y ago
    Dancing with a phone in your hand (like an old ipod advert) absolutely.
    - zamfi 3y ago
      Or worse, a pocket: phone floats up with you as you jump, then starts to freefall, then slams hard against your rising pocket.
  - zython 3y ago
    What kind of rollercoaster ride has more than ~10-20 g forces ? I could see how "negative" g forces could lead to a false positive but I think the absolute forces are too low. On the other hand I could see how during dancing the phone gets thrown around and that may be a similar pattern to a car crash.
    - eimrine 3y ago
      > What kind of rollercoaster ride has more than ~10-20 g forces ? I suppose that a regular crash but with a lucky ending can do a significant damage to phone in the pocket, because while the body is losing speed slowly, the phone and other things in pocket can hit the road hardly and ricochet with insane acceleration. I am a fan of downhill but I never carry my phone during that kind of ride when I am acknowledged about high chances of my crash. And in that risky kind of event I would rather go bombing the hill with a friend who can give me a proper help than rely on some computer.
  - FinnKuhn 3y ago
    Maybe in a bag you are swinging around or more likely in a Moshpit (rapid acceleration with a sudden stop)
kotaKat 3y ago
To Apple's 100% credit they were willing to ship engineers out. This happened day 1 (Thursday) of a 4-day festival. Even though they declined to have Apple come out you know they still sent a couple engineers out to gather data regardless. On top of that, being proactive once it started happening and getting messaging out to attendees helped cut down the calls by ~50%, which definitely helped. All you can do is continually refine it once you deploy it. A bit damned if you do, damned if you don't.
- gdulli 3y ago
  You're not damned if you practice judgment that keeps you from using machine learning anywhere just because you can, inflicting others with the hassle of inevitable false positives, false negatives, and false sense of security in a solution that will remain flawed regardless of your own level of patience to throw new versions out.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  > All you can do is continually refine it once you deploy it. A bit damned if you do, damned if you don't you could also get it to work with fewer false positives before deploying it, so more like damned if you do rush to market without proper testing and not-damned if you're thoughtful and do minimal testing first (which would obviously include dancing) or, alternatively, just don't deploy and keep deployed a feature which fails so often and for which failures have such a significant impact on people
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >you could also get it to work with fewer false positives before deploying it I'm sure they did.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      "fewer" obviously means fewer than it has now: the amount it currently has is too many, the amount it needs to have is fewer than the amount it currently has this means they either didn't get it to work with fewer false positives than it has, or they did, then they discarded those improvements, leading to the inadequate release we have now (in which, again, the amount of false positives is too many)

hospitalJail 3y ago

I can only imagine that if I rushed a product to market that cost taxpayers thousands of dollars an interrupted emergency services, I'd be in serious trouble. But when you are famous, they just let you do it.

vkou 3y ago
Would you? We have a piss-poor track record of holding 'job creators' accountable for direct harm to our communities, let alone two-steps removed indirect harm.
taeric 3y ago
It doesn't take a lot of searching to find this feature giving a pretty large benefit, though? That is, be careful not to strawman this such that they can't have any false positives. Do keep on them to make it ever better, of course.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- avgDev 3y ago
  The problem is when stuff like this happens, it is hard to say how many individuals died or have been negatively affected due to resources having issues getting to the right individuals. If dancing can make an iphone call 911, then Apple has not done their job. You cannot achieve g-forces dancing anywhere close to a serious crash. This is pathetic and unacceptable.
  - crubier 3y ago
    > You cannot achieve g-forces dancing anywhere close to a serious crash You absolutely can, remember, the phone is recording the accelerations of the phone, not the acceleration of your brain or car or anything heavy.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

nazgulsenpai 3y ago

I just want to point out that the festival poster in the article has a band named DIARRHEA PLANET. This has significantly improved my mood.

kypro 3y ago

How on Earth are you ever going to reliably prevent false positives for a feature like this while still reliably detecting crashes? I mean realistically unless you have a clear visual of the crash it's going to be very hard to tell a car crash from a loud noise + movement alone. Really they should be asking you if you want to enable "crash detection" before setting off and it should remain disabled at all other times. If you can already ensure the user is in a car and then the phone happens to sense something like a crash then chances are much greater that it's actually a crash.

ben7799 3y ago
Apple's solution or hardware is just half baked. The G-forces in a crash are much higher than dancing. Other implementations are better. I carry an iPhone when I go biking, and I have a Garmin GPS. The Garmin crash detection works far better. The Garmin is tuned well enough to go off on a real crash mountain biking but won't go off if you have an accident that's not a full fall. I have had a very "real" crash and seen the Garmin correctly identify it and the iPhone does not.
cowsup 3y ago
An easy way would be to calculate your speed ahead of time. If I’m going 55 mph (90 km/h), there’s a loud noise, and the phone gets jolted a bit, then it can check the distance it’s traveled for the next 3-4 seconds. If it’s clear that it’s not moving anymore, then it can begin alerting me; no response, it calls 911. Apple currently checks your location periodically, so it can fulfill location-based reminder requests, so I honestly figured a similar tech was used for the crash detection. I’m pretty surprised that that’s not the case.
- Filligree 3y ago
  > Apple currently checks your location periodically, so it can fulfill location-based reminder requests, so I honestly figured a similar tech was used for the crash detection. I’m pretty surprised that that’s not the case. GPS positioning at least used to be power-hungry, to the point it couldn't be run continuously. I'm not sure if that's still the case, but it could be a factor.

blueflow 3y ago

Make it an legal offense to butt-dial. Its basically a DDoS on the emergency hotline, so why not?

nazgulsenpai 3y ago
They're not butt-dialing 911, the iPhone/Watch is automatically calling 911 because it "detected an automobile crash"

rootusrootus 3y ago

I think as Android and iOS release these new automated emergency reporting features, it should not tie up the existing voice-based 911 system. Maybe it goes to a call center where humans can interpret what they're seeing first. Or maybe we have a standardized API by which these devices can report directly to 911. But tying up a voice operator talking to a computer seems like a real waste of resources. I'm assuming that's what's happening, maybe I'm completely wrong.

jeroenhd 3y ago
At least the Android version requires manual input (pressing the power button five times in quick succession) but as reported some people seem to do that accidentally somehow (bad power button, I guess?). It's crazy what large tech companies are allowed to do with public infrastructure. I bet you an app from a small developer would get cease and desisted within a month if it had false positives like these. At least put some of your own operators on the line first so you can verify that the emergency services are actually needed, and maybe don't even roll out the feature in areas that don't opt into receiving these automated alerts.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  > the Android version requires manual input That feature is identical to iPhone's SOS call feature, but I think it has gotten recent coverage for false positives. I don't recall hearing that Apple's implementation has had the same level of false positives. In this most recent situation it is crash detection, which I -think- Android also has, or at least Pixel phones do, but I don't know if they've had false positive problems.
  - Phrodo_00 3y ago
    > which I -think- Android also has, or at least Pixel phones do Yes, Pixel launched the feature on 2019. I didn't really find articles about false positives, but that's not at all empirical.
- INTPenis 3y ago

nradov 3y ago

This is a hard engineering problem to solve. Garmin bike computers and fitness trackers have a similar incident detection feature which uses the accelerometer. It doesn't automatically call 911 but it will automatically text designated emergency contacts via a Bluetooth link to your smartphone if it thinks you crashed your bike or something. I have had a few false positives when making hard stops on rough surfaces. Fortunately I was able to cancel the alert before it sent a message. https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=RfaXahBWkH8Q7pVFLsuUmA https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=RfaXahBWkH8Q7pVFLsuUmA

dncornholio 3y ago
I don't think it's a problem at all. Phones shouldn't be doing automatic crash detection. Problem solved. I have a feeling this creates more problems than they solve. A computer should never reach out to emergency calls without the user pressing something.
- nradov 3y ago
  In a real emergency the user might be unconscious or otherwise unable to push a button.
  - supertrope 3y ago
    Then they need a private monitoring service to call them before 911 is called. The current level of public safety resources cannot handle robocalls to 911.
- aksss 3y ago
  I like loose coupling. The car or bike computer handles crash detection and uses phone for its communications (calling or texting). The reality though is that the phone is the bike computer or functionally the car CMU for a lot of people.

pengaru 3y ago

That sure is some car crash when it just keeps shaking all night... trash

cj 3y ago

How much of a nuisance is this in reality? From what I've heard, 911 operators regularly get people calling them for non-emergencies. The 911 operator's job is to judge whether the caller is actually reporting a legitimate emergency, and if so, route the report to the correct emergency personnel (fire/police/ambulance/etc) OR disregard the report as a non-emergency. The end of the article seems to confirm the false positives didn't actually have any real negative impact. So legitimate emergencies were not drowned out by the accidental dialing. > Thankfully, that wasn’t enough false 911 calls to overwhelm the local system and prevent responders from dealing with real emergencies that weekend, and with the help of festival organizers, the local authorities were able to locate the source of every false 911 call to determine that no actual emergencies were being reported. Obviously eliminating false positives would be ideal. But if the false positives aren't overloading 911 operators, seems like maybe a non-issue? Especially if these things can be predicted, e.g. local emergency personell should be aware of a local festival anyway (and can be on alert for these false positives, assuming it's not so bad as to drown out actual emergencies). Many people have an irrational fear of dialing 911. If you do it right now, someone will pickup the phone, and if you simply say "Sorry, I didn't mean to dial!" you won't get in trouble and the 911 operator will gladly let you off the line.

short_throw 3y ago
If no one speaks than you can't differentiate a false alarm from someone who can't breathe, or is hiding from an attacker, or is too hurt to put the phone to their ear. It's a massive nuisance unless someone gets on to say it was a mistake...and if someone didn't notice their phone buzzing before it made the call they aren't gonna pick up.
- jon-wood 3y ago
  This system doesn’t just open a voice line to 999, it dials 999 and then plays an automated message saying something along the lines of “The owner of this iPhone may have been involved in a crash, the device is currently located at [location]” and then repeats it a few times. Ideally there’d be a better system for this where 999 can be notified in a machine readable format allowing them to filter out automated calls from known sites that are generating false positives, but it’s not like the operators don’t have information to work from. It’s also possible operators could (maybe they already can) see which mobile cell the call came from, which would also help rule out false alerts because they’d be flagged as coming from the vicinity of a festival. Generally for large events 999 are going to contact the organisers and let them know they need to send out a first aid team anyway, they’re not going to automatically despatch an ambulance without someone having confirmed the need for one.

noodlesUK 3y ago

I think one of the things that other posters are alluding to is that the phone can experience very significant forces if you are dancing, especially if it is being held in something like a purse or other bag that's flying around wildly as you dance (or if the phone is dropped). I'm pretty sure that if I threw my phone in a bag and caught it by the strap, it would experience far more G force than in any ordinary car crash, and if it is surrounded by screaming and general chaos, I think it's making a fairly understandable decision. The sensor fusion algorithms get confused by this, and the phone decides to call 911. It displays a notification for 10 seconds, then it starts a further 10 second countdown where it buzzes at maximum power and plays a siren noise at maximum volume. Under normal circumstances a reasonable person would notice these very loud alerts, and cancel the call. In a festival scenario where the users are deafened by other noises and possibly drunk/high, you might not notice. The phone then makes a call to 911. How would you alternatively design a system that calls emergency services in a crash? Where would you personally choose to calibrate the false positive/false negative rate? These are hard design choices, and there will always be incorrect detections with any automated system like this.

recursive 3y ago
> How would you alternatively design a system that calls emergency services in a crash? I'd put it in the car. Make it use the same sensor as airbag deployment.
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  I think that's probably the best way to do something like this, but it certainly won't have the reach of putting the feature in people's phones. Only newer cars with the feature would be able to make the call. I think it would make sense to require some feature like this as part of the standard safety equipment on a new car. I'm pretty sure that this iPhone feature has and will save lives, and it may also risk them due to resource mismanagement.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    > ... but it certainly won't have the reach of putting the feature in people's phones. I think this may be another job for Bayes. Apple's algorithm may be very accurate at detecting car crashes when there are car crashes, but most of the time there are not car crashes. As a result it may actually be super inaccurate at the 'population' level. So while it may have the reach, the incidence of false positives and the infrastructure misallocation may yield worse outcomes than not having the system in the first place.

bob1029 3y ago

This whole iOS dialing 911 thing reminds me of the technology connections video on LED street lights. A perfect case of good intentions all around but with some emergent caveats that could not have been foreseen until the final result was in place. In the case of LED street lighting, a mild compromise or patch-around makes sense. In the case of your phone automatically dialing emergency services, the game theory seems a bit more difficult to mediate. At this point I feel like the best course of action is to back out the feature. Adding a "are you sure" button to prevent a false dialing might as well just be turning it off. Making it less sensitive - effectively the same (maybe worse if you expect to rely on it). There really isn't a fundamental way to save this without yet-more-complexity. The user's intention will be betrayed from the perspective of their device in some percent of cases. You will never be able to solve this 100%. Now the real question is, are we comfortable with some % error rate? Probably yes. A crank call to 911 isn't like an airbag going off unprovoked or your car deciding a plastic bag floating on the freeway is good cause to engage full emergency braking.

mydriasis 3y ago

That's a way to earn some bragging rights -- "I was going so hard that my phone thought I was dying and called an ambulance"

ufmace 3y ago

I wonder what happens when people start taking these things into mosh pits. I would also think it's pretty easy to dismiss on the 911 operator side. Hey reported car crash. Oh wait, the location is in the middle of a dance club. Guess it's just another false positive.

aksss 3y ago
Been there, done that. Why would you think that has yet to start? Never had a problem with the phone auto-dialing 911 in this scenario personally. Maybe a difference is that people in the pit are more likely to have phone in pocket, whereas dancers are more likely to be holding phone in hand (cuz generally more likely to want it at the ready for selfies, etc?). I imagine that a phone’s accelerometer, when at the end of a moment arm (or literal arm in this scenario), is going to have a wilder experience than when held closer to the center of mass.

Havoc 3y ago

And yesterday there was a similar story about android. Feels like these automated emergency things should go into a 2nd lower priority queue if they’re so low signal to noise ratio. Else it drowns out the higher quality sig/noise actual calls

taeric 3y ago
Or, it is a case of shark attacks making the news? Notable that not a single story that has been reported has mentioned places getting overwhelmed with calls from this.

activiation 3y ago

Hopefully apple gets heavily fined for this non-sense

nekoashide 3y ago

It must be from slam dancing, moshing, ect. Sometimes it can get down right violent but most people are respectful but I can see how it can be set off and ignored as bodies are being slammed around.

coding123 3y ago

Instead of Apple making a device and trying to convince all car makers to adopt it, they are putting it in phones. To sell phones. It shows that all our companies are in it for money and not for saving your life. There's no reason a feature like this needs to be in a phone. It should be in a car. Only