Apple repair facility in California made about 1,600 false alarm 911 calls since October
Emergency dispatch centers in Elk Grove and Sacramento, Calif., have over the past four months seen an increasing number of false alarm calls originate from an Apple facility in the area, with workers there fielding about 20 such calls per day.
According to dispatcher Jamie Hudson, the calls are coming from iPhones or Apple Watches within an Apple repair and refurbishing center in Elk Grove, reports CBS Sacramento. As an emergency services center, dispatchers are able to see where calls are coming from, either through cell tower triangulation or information gleaned from onboard GPS, if such functions are active.
When dispatchers answer a call from the Apple facility they are rarely met with another person on the line, suggesting the calls are being placed in error.
"The times when it's greatly impacting us is when we have other emergencies happening and we may have a dispatcher on another 911 call that may have to put that call on hold to triage the incoming call," Hudson said.
Apple acknowledged the situation and said it is working on a solution.
"We're aware of 911 calls originating from our Elk Grove repair and refurbishment facility," an Apple spokesperson said. "We take this seriously and we are working closely with local law enforcement to investigate the cause and ensure this doesn't continue."
Apple failed to specify why employees are making errant 911 calls, though the company's Emergency SOS feature could be to blame. According to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Communication Center, which received about 47 errant 911 calls from Apple since the start of the year, dispatchers can sometimes hear technicians "talking about Apple, or devices or generally about maintenance and repairs."
The SOS feature, present on both iPhone and Apple Watch, is designed to be activated in a hurry.
On current iPhone X and iPhone 8 models, users must press and hold the side button and both volume buttons to trigger Emergency SOS. Alternatively, pressing the side button five times in rapid succession achieves the same result. This latter method is also used to activate Emergency SOS on older iPhone models.
When the SOS feature is triggered, a large timer will being counting down from three seconds and a loud rising tone is played through the device's speakers. Once the timer reaches zero, the call is automatically placed without further user intervention. Users can halt the operation by tapping on an onscreen "Stop" button and confirming in a subsequent menu.
While the calls may be benign, the rate and consistency at which they are placed is a problem. So far, Elk Grove Police report receiving some 1,600 calls since October, each of which takes valuable seconds away from real emergencies.
"The times when it's greatly impacting us is when we have other emergencies happening and we may have a dispatcher on another 911 call that may have to put that call on hold to triage the incoming call," Hudson said of the apparently accidental Apple calls.
According to dispatcher Jamie Hudson, the calls are coming from iPhones or Apple Watches within an Apple repair and refurbishing center in Elk Grove, reports CBS Sacramento. As an emergency services center, dispatchers are able to see where calls are coming from, either through cell tower triangulation or information gleaned from onboard GPS, if such functions are active.
When dispatchers answer a call from the Apple facility they are rarely met with another person on the line, suggesting the calls are being placed in error.
"The times when it's greatly impacting us is when we have other emergencies happening and we may have a dispatcher on another 911 call that may have to put that call on hold to triage the incoming call," Hudson said.
Apple acknowledged the situation and said it is working on a solution.
"We're aware of 911 calls originating from our Elk Grove repair and refurbishment facility," an Apple spokesperson said. "We take this seriously and we are working closely with local law enforcement to investigate the cause and ensure this doesn't continue."
Apple failed to specify why employees are making errant 911 calls, though the company's Emergency SOS feature could be to blame. According to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Communication Center, which received about 47 errant 911 calls from Apple since the start of the year, dispatchers can sometimes hear technicians "talking about Apple, or devices or generally about maintenance and repairs."
The SOS feature, present on both iPhone and Apple Watch, is designed to be activated in a hurry.
On current iPhone X and iPhone 8 models, users must press and hold the side button and both volume buttons to trigger Emergency SOS. Alternatively, pressing the side button five times in rapid succession achieves the same result. This latter method is also used to activate Emergency SOS on older iPhone models.
When the SOS feature is triggered, a large timer will being counting down from three seconds and a loud rising tone is played through the device's speakers. Once the timer reaches zero, the call is automatically placed without further user intervention. Users can halt the operation by tapping on an onscreen "Stop" button and confirming in a subsequent menu.
While the calls may be benign, the rate and consistency at which they are placed is a problem. So far, Elk Grove Police report receiving some 1,600 calls since October, each of which takes valuable seconds away from real emergencies.
"The times when it's greatly impacting us is when we have other emergencies happening and we may have a dispatcher on another 911 call that may have to put that call on hold to triage the incoming call," Hudson said of the apparently accidental Apple calls.
Comments
I was horrified and apologetic both times, since the darn thing is tough to turn off -- as it should well be -- since it starts to call 911 right away.
turn on the count down feature which gives you time to cancel and request before the call is actually made.
The first time I hit the power button 5 times, the alarm so startled me that I almost didn't cancel the call in time. And I sure as hell wouldn't want that alarm going off if I'm trying to be secretive about calling emergency services.
/s
It was somewhat amusing that the disabled “slider” emergency alarm control no longer warns me that the iPhone is “sliding” out of its caliper holder. 50% of the time (depending to which end it’s sliding) the iPhone was letting me know it was in an advanced state of being about to fall on the floor - by loudly trumpeting an impending emergency call.
No longer. Sigh.
Bring back the Guy and make Apple great again
Bullshit ^.
More bullshit ^. If a case can call 9-1-1 then it's a badly designed case and someone with at least a room temperature IQ would have tossed it the first time it happened or turn off the 9-1-1 feature.
Where to even start with this ^. Either you left of the /s or your IQ is less than room temperature.
Apple could make videos that are interactive so their techs and customers could 'practice' activating and deactivating the 9-1-1 process without risk of triggering EMS calls.
And Apple has enough money that if they don't want to increase training and performance standards (which they should do anyway) they can easily afford to have a Faraday cage installed or room built to end the calls (which they should do anyway).
I don't know how long that's been going on, but it's something that should have been stopped immediately until a permeant solution was in place.
What about a Faraday box? Put the Watches in a large lined box with provision for seeing the Watch, reach in through lined gauntlets with open fingers, and do minimal work on the Watches until they're rendered EMS-safe. If viable, it might be quicker to implement than a cage or room (which should be done anyway).