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Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

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Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#101

Post by briandear »

gregsadetsky wrote: post #93

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…

Congrats on your award and thanks for your Harvey work. As a former Houstonian, that event is close to my heart.

Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#102

Post by chefandy »

VonGuard wrote: post #63

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. Fin…

get up get get, get down

Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#103

Post by ryanmarsh »

VonGuard wrote: post #63

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. Fin…

My friend Matthew Hanson died in Oakland. He was shot in his home and died because of the 911 problem. Appalling.

In my home area 911 picks up immediately and police and EMS would have been there in under 15 minutes.

This story below (headline about how the shooter subsequently died) explains that there were two alterations. My friend (the victim) called 911 during the first altercation, 40 minutes before the second altercation where he was subsequently shot. He stayed alive for long enough to call 911 a second time. Sadly they didn't make it there in time. When the police arrived they couldn't get anyone to answer the door so they left. Matthew was found by a friend.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/06/15/oakland-slaying-suspe...

Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#104

Post by dpark »

chillingeffect wrote: post #71
Rotten194 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of 911 is to have emergency responders come to your location. If you don't want emergency responders to come to your location, you shouldn't be calling 911, full stop.

> full stop. Maybe your brain finds it convenient to shut off there, but not for many of us. We have experience reporting crime but don't want to be identified because the rest of the criminal's cronies could turn on us. Without knowing how our information travels once it leaves our hands, retaliation from crooked government organizations, gangs, small time mobs, abusive family members is all too possible. And we all…

You are claiming that you have experience calling from your cell phone to report organized crime, and you believe that heretofore those calls were untraceable?

Providing the location has literally nothing to do with anonymity in this scenario. If your cell phone is not traceable to you, then it doesn't matter if your 911 call is accompanied by location info automatically. You're going to provide that same location info to the dispatcher anyway. And the criminals involved will also know the location because they are there committing the crime.

Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#105

Post by Benjammer »

dpark wrote: post #91
Benjammer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is building a feature that will help them maintain their image and gain more user trust and loyalty. Government services aren't capitalist companies, their job is to efficiently allocate budget, not to "out-compete" anyone. If Apple starts subsidizing the cost of modern 911 (and building a feature into their mobile operating system to make 911 more accessible is surely subsidizing the cost of upgrading failing…

You're saying that because Apple enables a feature that helps 911, they should cover he costs of 911 service. What this implies is that everyone should do the bare minimum required by law, because if they do anything more they should expect to shoulder billions in infrastructure costs that would otherwise be correctly carried by the government. > If richer areas see benefits from this and start to drop the amount the…

>This makes no sense.

Welcome to the world of government services, where it's literally, by definition, a different place than the capitalist business world.

>because Apple enables a feature that helps 911, they should cover he costs of 911 service.

Yes, there are services where our society has decided that the public government is more appropriate to manage that service, generally because competition motives would cause disadvantaged groups to receive proportionally less service.

If Apple is going to wade into one of these areas, they need to play by the rules of that public service, they can't just treat it like another business metric to compete with.

>What this implies is that everyone should do the bare minimum required by law, because if they do anything more they should expect to shoulder billions in infrastructure costs that would otherwise be correctly carried by the government.

Yes, I believe this is the correct (ethical) way to think about these motivations, because it removes some amount of capitalist competition from the equation, again, in an area that is not appropriate for private competition in this manner.

>You are arguing that lowered support costs will actually decrease support.

Yes, do you understand how budgeting works in government?

Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#106

Post by dbcooperlives »

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.

Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#107

Post by akadruid1 »

rwmj wrote: post #18

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.

In the 90s as a teeneager working in a mall, I had a customer who had an emergency, I called 999 and gave my address as $shopname, $mallname but the call handler didn't know the mall and wouldn't send an ambulance without a street name. I imagine the local responding ambulance would have trouble locating it by street name since the mall is giant and has entrances on several streets.

Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#108

Post by bovine3dom »

gregsadetsky wrote: post #93

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…

There's some work in this area already, e.g. https://www.goodsamapp.org/.

Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#109

Post by e40 »

VonGuard wrote: post #63

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. Fin…

Just FYI, if you are ever in Oakland and have trouble, DO NOT CALL 911. Call the police directly at 510-777-3333

I recommend that whatever city you are in, you have a shortcut to the police on your home screen (perhaps buried a little, so you don't accidentally butt dial it).

Re: Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls

#110

Post by bungie4 »

antsar wrote: post #97
Terretta wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”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

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).

Exactly.
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