Android's Emergency Call Shortcut Is Flooding Dispatchers With False Calls (arstechnica.com) 51
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Police forces in the UK are seeing a "record number" of false calls to 999, the UK's emergency services number, and the culprit is apparently Android. As the BBC reports, Android 12 added an easy-access feature for emergency services: just press the power button five times, and your phone will dial emergency services for you. That's apparently pretty easy to do accidentally when a phone is sitting in your pocket, or if you have a wonky power button, resulting in a surge of totally silent accidental calls to emergency dispatch.
The National Police Chiefs Council tweeted earlier this month that "Nationally, all emergency services are currently experiencing record high 999 call volumes. There's a few reasons for this, but one we think is having a significant impact is an update to Android smartphones." The BBC report says one department "received 169 silent 999 calls between 00:00 and 19:00 BST on Sunday alone." In response to these most recent complaints, Google says it's working on a fix with Android OEMs.
The funny thing is, Android 12 -- and this easy emergency call feature -- came out a year and a half ago. Thanks to the unique (uniquely bad) way that Android is rolled out, the feature is only now hitting enough people to become a national problem. Google's Pixel devices get new Android updates immediately, but everyone else can take months or years to get new versions of Android because it's up to your device manufacturer to make new, bespoke Android builds for every device they have ever released. When this landed on Pixel devices in 2021, it was immediately flagged as a problem by some people, with one Reddit post calling it "dangerous." Since then, there has been a steady stream of posts warning people about it. Until a patch comes out, Google's current recommendation is to turn the feature off. While Google developed the feature, it's up to the manufacturers to decide how and when the emergency SOS feature works. Google said in a statement: "To help these manufacturers prevent unintentional emergency calls on their devices, Android is providing them with additional guidance and resources. We anticipate device manufacturers will roll out updates to their users that address this issue shortly. Users that continue to experience this issue should switch Emergency SOS off for the next couple of days."
The National Police Chiefs Council tweeted earlier this month that "Nationally, all emergency services are currently experiencing record high 999 call volumes. There's a few reasons for this, but one we think is having a significant impact is an update to Android smartphones." The BBC report says one department "received 169 silent 999 calls between 00:00 and 19:00 BST on Sunday alone." In response to these most recent complaints, Google says it's working on a fix with Android OEMs.
The funny thing is, Android 12 -- and this easy emergency call feature -- came out a year and a half ago. Thanks to the unique (uniquely bad) way that Android is rolled out, the feature is only now hitting enough people to become a national problem. Google's Pixel devices get new Android updates immediately, but everyone else can take months or years to get new versions of Android because it's up to your device manufacturer to make new, bespoke Android builds for every device they have ever released. When this landed on Pixel devices in 2021, it was immediately flagged as a problem by some people, with one Reddit post calling it "dangerous." Since then, there has been a steady stream of posts warning people about it. Until a patch comes out, Google's current recommendation is to turn the feature off. While Google developed the feature, it's up to the manufacturers to decide how and when the emergency SOS feature works. Google said in a statement: "To help these manufacturers prevent unintentional emergency calls on their devices, Android is providing them with additional guidance and resources. We anticipate device manufacturers will roll out updates to their users that address this issue shortly. Users that continue to experience this issue should switch Emergency SOS off for the next couple of days."
That seems hard to accidentally trigger... (Score:1)
Sure seems like a five button press would be hard to accidentally trigger...
And given the had just 169 fake calls on a single night, that seems like a pretty small number compared to the number of people using Android phones in the U.K.
I wonder what the fix would be, maybe a confirmation swipe on the main screen when you activate it?
I thought also at one point they went through this with iPhones as well...
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I had to disable this feature because in the past 6ish months my phone has almost called 911 a few times on me and did dial them once. Best I can tell is it does this just from being in my pocket
That is strange it would actually take five successive presses from being in a pocket...
The default setting blares a siren and does a countdown before it calls, so this uptick is from people who did not cancel the call within the 10 second countdown.
I've accidentally triggered this very mode on an iPhone a few time
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I had to disable this feature because in the past 6ish months my phone has almost called 911 a few times on me and did dial them once. Best I can tell is it does this just from being in my pocket
That is strange it would actually take five successive presses from being in a pocket...
The default setting blares a siren and does a countdown before it calls, so this uptick is from people who did not cancel the call within the 10 second countdown.
I've accidentally triggered this very mode on an iPhone a few times as well, though I can't remember if it was pocket related or not... I think I always managed to catch it before it really called though.
The problem is, in order to make it truly useful in a possible life-and-death situation, you can't just use the Double-Click Timeout and call it day. So, It has to allow for rather generous timing when deciding if a series of Events is an Emergency Call; or just random bumping of controls.
Would you want to be the one to decide what the Rules are on that particular Fuzzy-to-Crisp algorithm?
Re:That seems hard to accidentally trigger... (Score:5, Interesting)
It happened to me - the screen on my phone locked up. So i clicked it off, clicked it on again to see if it worked, then tried it again a couple more times trying to get the touch driver to reset. SOmehow after that I tried to reset my phone by holding the power button down and it must've bounced because the next thing I know it's trying to call 911. And with the touchscreen locked up, I couldn't cancel it. So I had to spend a few minutes talking to the nice people at the call center that it wasn't an emergency (took a surprisingly large amount of convincing that no, I was in no danger), they took my details and after that I managed to hang up.
Never figured out why the touchscreen locked up - all I know is it was working after that nice chat on 911.
Two things to remember - first, if you do call by mistake, admit it immediately - that way if they're overloaded they can deal with you at a lower priority. Second, stay on the line until they tell you you're free to go. Hanging up forces them to send out someone to investigate so stay on the line until you manage to convince them it was accidental.
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If you go into settings you can disable it, or better still change the action from call 999 to record video. Recording cannot be stopped without entering your PIN/password.
You can also have it share your location with trusted contacts.
Very handy if you encounter the police.
Re:That seems hard to accidentally trigger... (Score:4, Insightful)
The default setting blares a siren and does a countdown before it calls
Seems counter-intuitive. Best use of such a shortcut would be a situation where you wanted to dial but didn't want to draw attention to yourself. Bank holdup, mass shooter in a school, hiding behind the sofa during a home invasion, etc. And then the siren goes off ...
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The default setting blares a siren and does a countdown before it calls
Seems counter-intuitive. Best use of such a shortcut would be a situation where you wanted to dial but didn't want to draw attention to yourself. Bank holdup, mass shooter in a school, hiding behind the sofa during a home invasion, etc. And then the siren goes off ...
So, always remember to put your phone on Vibrate when hiding behind the Sofa.
Goes for any occasion that has you hiding behind any sofa.
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Seems counter-intuitive. Best use of such a shortcut would be a situation where you wanted to dial but didn't want to draw attention to yourself.
WTF are you talking about? You've been watching too many movies. The best use of this feature would be picking up the nearest phone and getting through to emergency services in any situation, regardless if that phone is yours or not, or locked or not. Bonus point is the alarm will alert others to your need for first aid.
Not sure where you live that you think bank holdups and mass shooters are more common than helping someone who has had a heart attack or car accident. ... Well actually I know exactly where
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I don't think I've ever seen a phone without a function on its lock screen to make an emergency call.
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I don't think I've ever seen a phone from which you can dial emergency services faster by unlocking it and fucking around on the lock screen rather than mashing a button quickly. If I hit the unlock button right now I'm presented with a screen that shows no emergency call option. I need to specifically tap the phone icon. If I do that the unlock challenge opens, if my finger is in the wrong place on the screen that immediately tries to scan my fingerprint and needs to fail first. I can emergency call only f
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The default setting blares a siren and does a countdown before it calls
Seems counter-intuitive. Best use of such a shortcut would be a situation where you wanted to dial but didn't want to draw attention to yourself. Bank holdup, mass shooter in a school, hiding behind the sofa during a home invasion, etc. And then the siren goes off ...
When I set up my Pixel 7 yesterday it walked me through a setup of this. You could choose to disable the feature entirely, or have the emergency call feature but disable the siren (it even vaguely hinted at scenarios where you would not want to call attention to yourself), or have the call feature and the siren. It's up to you.
Re:That seems hard to accidentally trigger... (Score:5, Funny)
Would you like to enable Sticky Keys?
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Aha!! (Score:1)
I did this (U.S.) because I thought my finger was on the *volume* button run below the power button
Although flaky power buttons could do some in, this seems like a very easy mistake for many to make! I'm sure given that placement I'd trigger that myself as sometimes I want the volume way down in a hurry and rapidly tap it several times...
Re: That seems hard to accidentally trigger... (Score:1)
Re: That seems hard to accidentally trigger... (Score:1)
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You'd think so but when the power button on my last phone went flaky, it would register false button presses, repeatedly turning the phone off and on and calling 911. At first I thought the battery was going bad because I couldn't even charge it. Once I figured out what the real problem was, I had to tilt the phone on its side, button side down, in order to transfer the data to a new phone.
The new phone wakes itself up with a swipe, which is annoying but at least it means the power button won't wear out so
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This sounds like a problem that would arise in time, as power button actuator wears out and button press goes from something requiring significant amount of force in a specific direction to a far lesser amount of force in a much wider vector of said force.
And that would be in line with "starts happening a year or two after feature is out", when phones with this feature age enough that button becomes much easier to actuate due to wear and tear.
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And given the had just 169 fake calls on a single night, that seems like a pretty small number compared to the number of people using Android phones in the U.K.
The article said this:
That's one department. Not the whole of the UK. And silent emergency calls are followed up on because they're supposed to be emergencies and people can't necessarily speak.
999? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought the number changed to 0118 999 881 919 119 725 3 a couple decades ago. I'm pretty sure I saw a documentary or PSA about it.
Happens frequently in Mexico (Score:2)
I'm in Mexico with a Samsung phone, and I've had a lot of issues with my phone pocket dialing the local emergency number. Often when I pull my phone out I find that in my pocket it dialed emergency, or took lots of screen shots of the emergency screen with my blood type on it
Pretty crazy there isn't a "detect I'm in a pocket' option...
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Well... (Score:2)
...wouldn't have happened with an iPhone.
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Perhaps not, but it certainly happens with an Apple Watch [nytimes.com].
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...wouldn't have happened with an iPhone.
They literally did. Multiple times. Every time Apple touched the feature or introduced something related to emergency services it causes unwanted calls large enough to get emergency services to complain and a news article written about it.
This is par for the course.
https://www.sciencealert.com/a... [sciencealert.com]
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobi... [cnet.com]
https://www.brooklynvegan.com/... [brooklynvegan.com]
911 (Score:1)
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Or fine Google for it since it's their implementation that's doing it without people knowing it's happening.
Pocket Emergency (Score:2)
There's something I liked about the old bricks, that is impossible to do with touchscreens: dial an emergency from the pocket.
I got my first smartphone not long after a situation downtown where I felt quite threatened: folks from the street walking with me and the situation got really awkward for me. There was no way I was going to take my phone out of my pocket, afraid they'd engage before I would have been able to call for help, if only to rob me from my phone.
So I had my brick unlocked, in my pocket, eme
Re: Pocket Emergency (Score:2)
I've just checked the options in Settings on my /e/OS phone. That's Android-based.
Here's the options:
* enable or disable "Emergency SOS"
* enable or disable the "Emergency Alarm" sound
* the number to dial
I'd guess different OEM/releases have different defaults. But in the end, these are user settings.
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A good flip phone is peak phone. Of all the phones I've owned, my favorite was the original RAZR line. The OS is pretty crap, but you could run little java midlets if you were into that, and more importantly it was just a good phone. It supported mp3 ringtones which is about the fanciest thing I really want in that device. The phones were capable of doing tethering, what more did I need out of them?
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Probably not just android phones (Score:2)
Brought to you by Apple (Score:2)
Uniquely bad? You mean there isn't one big fruit company that controls everything about my device? Too bad about that
Just a week ago... (Score:2)
I did this once (Score:2)
I was driving, listening to Google's directions, but the phone volume was too low. I tried to turn it up, several times, but turning up the volume wasn't working; then the phone dialed 911!
After that I disabled the "feature".
It's not 999 anymore... (Score:2)
It's 0118 999 881 999 119 725 ... 3
I've seen this happen IRL (Score:1)
Apparently people repeatedly hit power when they sit on their phones a lot more often than Google assumed. Seems like that's somethin
Um? (Score:2)
Goof (Score:2)
You have a design problem when 99% of the time, people use a feature by accident. Then, usually, they don't know how to extricate themselves, and may have to go look it up on the Internet.
I would occasionally hit F11 by accident and go into full screen mode in Chrome, but not know how to get back out of it because I didn't know what I did. One of the rare times I went through the difficulties to complain officially. Now it puts an F11 image at the top for a bit so you know and can reverse it.
Had an Android do this like 10 years ago ... (Score:2)