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Android's New Feature Can Share Your Exact Location In Emergency Situation (thenextweb.com) 109

Posted by msmash from the interesting-features dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report on The Next Web: When the police, fire brigade or ambulances need to respond quickly to an emergency call, accurate information about the caller's location is crucial in helping them arrive in time to be of assistance. With that in mind, Google has introduced a feature in Android that beams your location to emergency services automatically when you call them. It uses your Wi-Fi, GPS and cell tower information to pinpoint exactly where you are and sends the data without allowing it to be accessed by anyone else. The feature is currently available in UK and Estonia, but Google plans to bring it to other regions as well. If your device has Android 2.3 or newer version, it will be able to make use of the feature.
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Android's New Feature Can Share Your Exact Location In Emergency Situation More

Android's New Feature Can Share Your Exact Location In Emergency Situation

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  • If it's available since Android 2.3?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It means the update to the dialer can be used on phones as old as Android 2.3. It won't install or run on older phones.
    • I think TFS is saying that the feature can be backported to 2.3 or newer. Granted, I don't know what phones out there are on Gingerbread and still getting updates... (Maybe the point of this is so that legislation can mandate it, thus compelling carriers and OEMs to issue a patch, but that's unlikely.)
      • Up until a couple of months ago I was still running 2.2.2 on my phone, and I was still getting updates. I'd still be using it now if certain software that I wanted ran on it, and if the battery lasted more than half a day.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by johnw ( 3725 )

          I'm now slightly boggled by my Nexus One, which must be nearly 6 years old. The battery still has no difficulty making it through the day. (Although I had to install CyanogenMod and move some of the system to a uSD card in order to keep using it.

          • Well, that was a bit of an under-exaggeration. I'd charge it overnight. So first thing in the morning, it would have a full charge. It would be critically low, if not shut off by midnight; often by ten, and sometimes even by 8pm. It became unreliable at the height of its useful period.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by johanw ( 1001493 )

        It is an update to the Google Play Services, which are still updated for Android 2.3: see http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/g... [apkmirror.com] for the current versions.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kruug ( 4451395 )

      If it's available since Android 2.3?

      That's just the minimum supported version of Android, not when it was introduced. Like if there was software released today that still supported XP or 98. Doesn't mean that it's been around that long, just that they use compatible libraries to support legacy versions of the OS.

    • Google supplies multiple parts of the OS. One is the runtime for the apps, the actual OS. This one is what is has the 2.3 versions etc. This is also the one that google has no direct control over, as its open source and has to go through the manufacturers first before it reaches the users.

      Then there are the google play services. Its a bundle of apps developed by google, and auto-updating. These are under google's direct control, and this is where the feature was added. They can easily push it to all phones

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rot16 ( 4603585 )
      The actual news part here is there are two countries which will receive and make use of that information.
    • No matter how notoriously lax or reluctant a company is to support old products, you can always count on tracking* or advertisement** "features" to be backported to as many devices as possible, because those benefit the "top" (execs, marketing, law enforcement, etc.) much more than the "bottom" (users).

      * see telemetry and other spying in Windows 7/8

      ** see Samsung pushing embedded ads to legacy TVs [slashdot.org]
    • Yeah I caught that too. Pretty odd - and my phone just did a massive update of Android software today too.

    • If it's available since Android 2.3?

      And it's also coming to iOS 10.

  • How does this differ from E-911, which is already in place in most large jurisdictions in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The new version allows EMS to send a message to your phone politely explaining that there is an emergency so that the phone will automatically send them your location without your knowledge or approval. Just in case, you know.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rot16 ( 4603585 )
      Cell phone tower's location information and GPS location from the phone? Depends on the site but especially in rural areas phone tower could give you just a approximation several kilometers wide, while even random GPS in your phone narrows it down to ~5 meters (15 feet).

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Every major wireless carrier and handset on those networks in the US already use GPS assist for location. This was the case even before smartphones were popular. Many "dumb phones" include/included GPS chips that were only activated during 911 service. This must be only for countries that don't have e-911, or it's just redundant.

  • Define "Emergency" (Score:3)

    by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc...famine@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @11:30AM (#52589965) Journal

    Who's emergency? TLA's or LEA's "emergency", or my own?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by kruug ( 4451395 )
      According to the Google post, it appears to only enable itself when emergency services is contacted. Your phone has to initiate the "emergency".

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That's what google says. There are enough other organisations around that habitually have different answers (but don't voluntarily share) that you have to assume they'll get their kind of answer if they put their minds to it. That wouldn't be otherwise had google not introduced this, of course, this just makes it that much easier. You could even put on the (government mind control ray attracting! really, look it up) tin foil hats, and surmise that naturally google figures they'll get hit by a NSL sooner or

    • Emergency: an advertiser needing to advertise to you.
    • Hello, 911! Help I have an EMERGENCY SITUATION. My emergency is that some stalker is trying to locate me!

      What's that you say? In an emergency situation, my phone will share my location?
  • From original post:

    This feature is solely for the use of emergency service providers, and your precise location is never seen or handled by Google. It is sent from your handset to emergency services only when you explicitly place an emergency call, either directly or through your mobile network.

    From article:

    It uses your Wi-Fi, GPS and cell tower information to pinpoint exactly where you are and sends across the data without allowing it to be accessed by anyone else.

    Doesn't sound like it can't be accessed by anyone else like the article states, just that it gets sent on a direct route between your phone and emergency services. OTA MITM attacks could still get that information.

    • This "your precise location is never seen or handled by Google" is just manufactured truth. Yes, it is theoretically correct, but if the location is found using Wi-fi, then it must go over google's servers. Essentially the phone uploads the list of BSSIDs it sees and their strength, and google answers with a location. Its not the "exact" location, as that is a term used for GPS, but google does know and handle your non-exact location when you use their wifi service.

    • Doesn't sound like it can't be accessed by anyone else like the article states, just that it gets sent on a direct route between your phone and emergency services. OTA MITM attacks could still get that information.

      I imagine your phone isn't even packaging that information to send unless an emergency call is being placed, much less actually sending it. Are you really concerned about being man-in-the-middled in that scenario? In the US your 911 call becomes public record anyway.

    • From original post:

      This feature is solely for the use of emergency service providers, and your precise location is never seen or handled by Google. It is sent from your handset to emergency services only when you explicitly place an emergency call, either directly or through your mobile network.

      From article:

      It uses your Wi-Fi, GPS and cell tower information to pinpoint exactly where you are and sends across the data without allowing it to be accessed by anyone else.

      Doesn't sound like it can't be accessed by anyone else like the article states, just that it gets sent on a direct route between your phone and emergency services. OTA MITM attacks could still get that information.

      If you have explicitly placed a call to 911, I think having your location information intercepted is the least of your worries :-)

  • So (Score:3)

    by ShooterNeo ( 555040 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @11:36AM (#52590005)

    I take it this will work without the user having to approve anything and even if the GPS is turned off in the settings?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rot16 ( 4603585 )
      The user has to call 911 (or whatever). That's enough of indication you or someone nearby needs help.

      • My first Cell Phone (Candy Bar type) had a problem where if you mash on a key for too long it would call 911. So it calls 911 if I bend my leg the wrong way with the phone in my pocket.

    • Of course it will. Apple and Google phones are full of backdoors that can spy on you when you turn the features off.
      The only way to be truly secure is to buy a Blackberry.

      - Blackberry CEO

  • Genuinely curious here - how is wifi useful for determining location? Only a very, very small number of wifi access points can have pre-determined GPS locations, and you can't get an address from them.

    I've seen that annoying iPhone pop-up saying that GPS works better with wifi turned on, but always assumed that was a frequency/chipset conflict issue.

    Anyone know?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Anywhere a google street view car has been knows the GPS location of all the AP's it has seen...

    • Several companies routinely scan access point IDs and create maps of their physical locations. Most APs remain stationary, being in people's homes or businesses. This allows your phone to notice what AP IDs it sees and look up their physical location, letting the phone get a good idea of where it is even if no GPS is available.

      GPS does not work better with WiFi enabled -- location identification does, by combining the GPS coordinates with the access point location information.

      • GPS does not work better with WiFi enabled

        Actually, your GPS receiver can pinpoint your location more rapidly if it has a good approximate location to start with, which it can get from Wifi location. If your GPS receiver had to start from scratch (no assumption about initial location), it could take multiple minutes to locate you because it has to find and identify multiple satellites, and listen for a full 30-second cycle from each. With a good location estimate plus an already-synchronized clock, the GPS receiver can refine your location in a few

    • It is very useful. The vast majority of wifi access points have fixed locations (homes, businesses). In my experience (I used my phone with GPS off in an older handset because it wasn't implemented properly and drained the battery), it's nearly as good as GPS - usually able to pinpoint you to about 20 meters.

      Remember when Google got in trouble with the EU because their Google Street View cars were capturing too much wifi info? They were recording wifi info to build a global map of wifi hotspots specif

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by arth1 ( 260657 )

        It is very useful. The vast majority of wifi access points have fixed locations (homes, businesses). In my experience (I used my phone with GPS off in an older handset because it wasn't implemented properly and drained the battery), it's nearly as good as GPS - usually able to pinpoint you to about 20 meters.

        However, can fixed location be taken for granted in a life and death situation? My phone might pick up an access point of someone who just moved here and brought their WiFi router with them. The databases will still have the old address. So the dispatcher sends a response team to that location because it is "more precise"?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by MercTech ( 46455 )

      Location via wifi assumes the location of the service coincides with the "service address" of the provider. The big guys share the "service location" of customers. The smaller ISPs may report the business address of the ISP. (When on a wifi access point at a local burger chain; if I do a phone located on my phone it reports the regional office address of the burger chain.)
      Location of a wifi access point is easier to spoof or just be reported erroneously than a GPS location via ce

  • If they manage to add a Transporter to Android, with just a software update no less, wouldn't it make more sense to beam the phone's owner to emergency services instead of her location?

  • Like, including what floor you happen to be on in an apartment building?

    ... uses your Wi-Fi, GPS and cell tower information to pinpoint exactly where you are

    None of that contains any information about altitude. While it is technically possible to measure altitude as well and relay that, you cannot do so with enough anywhere close enough precision to get the exact floor of a building that you happen to be on if you live in an apartment building.

    Land lines still rule for emergency services immediately

  • It uses your Wi-Fi, GPS and cell tower information to pinpoint exactly where you are and sends the data without allowing it to be accessed by anyone else. [emphasis added]

    Um, yeah.

  • This feature, when supported by your network, sends location from your phone to emergency services when you dial an emergency number. This feature is solely for the use of emergency service providers, and your precise location is never seen or handled by Google. It is sent from your handset to emergency services only when you explicitly place an emergency call, either directly or through your mobile network.

    So a lookup table matches the outgoing phone number, and sends an SMS or similar to the LUT referen

  • I've often thought it would be useful to send my location to someone (by SMS, email, etc.).
    This feature only seems to work with 911 services.
    Does anyone know of an app which can send your location? (It would be nice if it was also integrated with maps.)

    • No need for an app. You can load up my web page. It will both send an sms and provide a Google maps link. For SMS, put the recipient's phone number after the question mark un the URL:

      http://clonebox.net/where/?123... [clonebox.net]

      You can also view the source of the page to see how I request the location and make your own page, if you like.

      Please don't use mine thousands of times. If you need to get locations from tens of thousands of people, let me know and I'll make you your own copy.

  • Exact location? Sign me up for non-emergency use, please.

    I never realized how shitty my phone's GPS was (it was always good enough for driving), until I started playing this fucking new game (you know the one). I can literally touch a certain gym's real-world counterpart with my hand, but in the game, I'm running back and forth from one side of it to the other, always "too far away."

  • Your knee-jerk reaction would be "great, another useless feature that lets big brother know where I am".

    But there _are_ real-world use cases for this, paranoia aside.

    In my country, this type of feature is used for situations where emergency response teams need to be dispatched for cases of terrorism and insurgency. Being able to know the exact location of a place that's under attack can make a difference.

  • Pro Tip: Only have an emergency in the UK or Estonia.
  • Until emergency rescue systems will get hacked!

  • Why not let users send their position by hitting a button? I'm thinking that it could insert text giving your location in text, or speech into a phone call, if you hit a "send my location" button. Then it'd work not just magically with E911 services (which, of course, is a great thing) but could work on normal phone calls (e.g. a kid calling Mom for help) or SMS (e.g. a kid texting Mom for help). The phone has the info, and it'd be easier to deploy, because it doesn't require any integration to anything outside of the phone.

  • Be nice to expand this (Score:3)

    by lazlo ( 15906 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @12:48PM (#52590657) Homepage

    What I'd like to see is something that can share my exact location with non-emergency services in non-emergency situations. Like when my wife asks "where are you?" or I ask my kids the same, it'd be nice to have a button to push that says "I'm right here" with coordinates and maybe even map-based street addresses (and if you want to get *really* fancy, would also send my current destination and ETA if navigation was active)

    It's entirely possible this already exists and I just haven't found it yet.

    • Depending on your carrier you can log into their website or install an app on your phone and check the gps location of any phone on your account...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ndogg ( 158021 )

      You already can in Hangouts. Not sure about other messaging apps.

  • I'm less concerned about my exact location being sent in emergencies than by the fact that my phone can now be hacked to provide by exact location AT ALL TIMES. Do I now need to carry my phone around in a Faraday cage? (By the way, my phone was able to "see" WiFi routers at work even inside the very expensive Faraday cage that HP had built, although I was told that was only because the door wasn't sealed properly.)

    • I've long since accepted the fact that a cell phone is no different than a tracking tag. We are all animals in some giant research project. I just hope I am one of the lucky ones that gets a prize!

      But sadly I feel naked without my phone... and yet I remember a time when I never owned one and being stuck in blizzard in a ditch was a much scarier thought - but I am still here. Maybe we don't need the gadgets as much as we think.

    • I'm less concerned about my exact location being sent in emergencies than by the fact that my phone can now be hacked to provide by exact location AT ALL TIMES.

      Nobody has to hack your phone at all to get your location down to a few meters in the best case, using DtoA. You just have to be in sight of two towers. Then they do a little math with your timestamps and they know right where you are. Get over the idea of positional privacy if you have a cellphone turned on.

  • I watched surveyors yesterday carrying around a portable plastic antenna; they said it was a GPS "rover". Which begs the question, how accurate is GPS? Do surveyors have access to the non-dithered GPS signal? Or are they only using it for relative positioning from a marked location, which is probably a lot more accurate than using it for absolute position?
  • Or when the organs of state security deem you a threat.

  • The story here, is that cellular providers are leaving you to die alone...

    The feds have been pushing for more advanced cellular locator technology for many years now. That would include things like altimeters/pressure sensors in all new cell phones, so that in a high rise building they can at least tell which floor you are on. Or U-TDOA high-accuracy triangulating receivers on cell towers. Or even an E-911 location for cell phones on file, so emergency services will at least know your exact home address.

    Th

  • In the US, wasn't this the whole reason that GPS on cell phones became mandatory ?
    No nononononono. . . . it's not to track you ! It's in case you ever call 911 so the dispatcher will know exactly where you are ! That was the selling point if I recall.

    Besides, I have access to quite a bit of 911 traffic and when testing this stuff in the past, I typically see GPS coords as part of what is transmitted across when a call is made if the user is calling via cell phone.

    Example of traffic that came across just

  • Title is misleading... It should read the exact location of a phone phone location != person location
  • In the USA this feature would be a guaranteed "NSA and all other TLAs" Local, County, State, and Federal police would mandate that they MUST be able to get it at ALL times. This is too good to be true. A Guaranteed locator! No more use of StingRay.
  • There goes that movie plot element for the future.

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