# Apple makes it easier for emergency services to find you when you contact them



## David Baxter PhD (Jan 26, 2018)

*Apple is about to help save thousands of lives*
by Jonny Evans, _Computerworld_
January 25, 2018

*A new iPhone feature promises to save thousands of lives and billions of dollars by making it easier for emergency services to find you when you contact them for help.*

Apple announced some exciting future iOS 11 features this week, including key improvements for ARKit, Health, Siri, enterprise users and more.

Hidden  among these announcements lurked promise of support for Advanced Mobile  Location, a powerful technology that gathers accurate location data  about a person?s location when they place an emergency call.

Advanced Mobile Location (AML) was created by the European Emergency Number Association  (EENA). The system is active in the U.K., Estonia, Lithuania, Austria,  Iceland, as well as New Zealand, on all mobile networks. More countries  are expected to enable support for the system this year. The standard is  already supported by Android devices that run Gingerbread OS or later.

*Why does this matter?*
The  biggest advantage of the technology is that it is so much more accurate  than other standards (such as Cell-ID) traditionally used when  emergency services try to follow-up an emergency call.

With  AML, caller location accuracy is improved up to 4,000 times in contrast  to Cell-ID. EENA claims 85 percent of calls located using AML are  accurate to a radius of under 50 meters.
In 2016, EENA  claimed that ?70-80 percent of emergency calls in Europe originate from a  mobile phone,? warning that the caller location information provided to  the emergency services by these calls is often ?inaccurate and  delayed.? 

People concerned about privacy may want to check claims that the technology is activated only when an emergency call is placed.


_?The system is only activated by an emergency call, transmits the  location only to emergency services and deactivates immediately after  use. It is typically active for just 30 seconds,? EENA has claimed._
​
*Life-saving technologies*
The technology has already saved lives, according to a series of case studies on the EENA website:


_In New Zealand,_ police were able to find and rescue a  suicidal person who was on railway tracks. The system got them within 4  meters of the person. 
_In Estonia_, victims of a serious car accident were rescued  when emergency services were guided to within 11 meters of the incident.  (The mobile operator?s data was less accurate, at 868 meters). 
_In Lithuania_, a 7-year-old boy was able to save his  father?s life. Dad had collapsed, and his small son didn?t know his  address, but emergency services were able to find and save them. 

*?Apple cares deeply?*
When Apple was fielding critics (including me)  who wanted the company to enable the FM radio many of us thought was  inside iPhones, Apple took pains to say how it tries to look after its  users. (In fact, only older (pre-7) iPhones host these inactive FM  radios.)  

In a statement at that time, the company said: 


_?Apple cares deeply about the safety of our users, especially during  times of crisis and that's why we have engineered modern safety  solutions into our products.?_
​
Just weeks earlier, EENA had implored Apple to introduce support for AML.

With the addition of AML support, Apple now has multiple built-in systems that may help save users' lives, including:


The capacity to contact emergency services and access Medical ID card information directly from the Lock Screen 
Support for government emergency notifications 
Apple Watch and the Activity status monitors 
The Health app 
Emergency SOS 

*Names, not numbers*
A 2016 European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) report claims AML can make a huge difference in life or death situations: 


_?Ambulance Service measurements show that, on average, 30 seconds per  call can be saved if a precise location is automatically provided, and  several minutes can be saved where callers are unable to verbally  describe their location due to stress, injury, language or simple  unfamiliarity with an area.?_
​
The impact of this is significant: Some data claims 7,500 lives could be saved in the EU within 10 years of the technology being widely deployed.

With  smartphones from both of the biggest manufacturers now supporting the  standard, it seems inevitable we?ll see U.S. mobile network operators  begin to enable support for it relatively soon.

 After  all, setting the system up only requires that emergency services and  mobile networks activate the service by providing somewhere the data can  be sent and then retrieved.

I imagine systems like these will become even more mandatory as connected cars begin to populate the road.


----------

