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The Fatal Flaw of 911

27 points by plunge ago | 31 comments

BenjiWiebe |next [-]

The article says the vast majority of places do not know where you are when you call 911; is that true?

I've toured our 911 call center, since I am a volunteer firefighter, and when you call on a cell phone you are immediately located by GPS and displayed on a map, and even tracked for a short time after you hang up.

And I would not expect Marion county Kansas to be up and coming technology-wise.

m-ee |root |parent |next [-]

Unless it’s changed recently, Bay Area 911 calls all get routed to CHP in Vallejo and they didn’t have any information of where you are if calling from a cell phone.

Doesn’t seem fixed from a quick Google https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/cellphone-users-in-oak...

fhdkweig |root |parent |previous [-]

Does anyone know if you have to have the GPS radio of the phone switched on for that to work? I keep my GPS and WIFI radios switched off for both privacy and to reduce the drain on the battery unless I specifically need it on when lost.

ordersofmag |root |parent |next [-]

There is no such thing as a GPS radio in a phone. GPS signals are broadcast by satellites and any device on earth can choose to listen for the signal and triangulate their position by receiving the signal from multiple satellites. GPS doesn't send out any signal from your phone to work. In the same way that your eyeballs don't need to emit light for you to see (unless you're a superhero). Phones broadcast signal to connect to cell networks and wifi networks.

Now if you expect your phone to show your position on a map (using the GPS coordinates it calculated from the satellite signal) then it likely needs to retrieve map data from the internet (and in doing so it might be broadcasting over cell or wifi frequencies). But that's a different story.

Much confusion is caused by people saying "I tracked X with GPS" with the implication that GPS allows tracking of remote objects. It doesn't. It allows the remote object to know its own location. For that information to get to someone else (the spy in the chasing vehicle) the remote object needs to be broadcasting that location information through some other means (which has nothing to do with GPS).

ba1afd89f34cb23 |root |parent |next |previous [-]

The OS overrides location service settings during emergency calls

> When using Emergency SOS to call emergency services, the call may include your location, regardless of whether you enable Location Services, to allow the dispatcher to assist you.

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/emergency-sos/

Android has a similar feature.

There is no legislation requiring this of device (or OS) vendors, but carriers are legally required to make location information available to emergency services, and I think are even prohibited from connecting phones that don’t make this possible. So market forces effectively ensure that all phones do this.

The exception is when the call is too short to get a lock for GPS and location can’t be determined. The phone will still transmit what it can (say, WiFi proximity derived location). Worse case is fall through to carrier triangulation.

Zigurd |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Short answer: no.

The network knows the signal strength between you and the cell towers nearest you. You are usually within range of more than one cell tower. That can locate you fairly accurately. Network data like this is used to augment GPS which can have problems among tall buildings for example.

foolswisdom |root |parent |previous [-]

Probably not, the network towers are the ones being used to triangulate I think.

Animats |next |previous [-]

Well, there's 311, for non-police non-emergencies.[1] New York City is serious about it, but most other places are not.

[1] https://portal.311.nyc.gov/about-nyc-311/

doctorpangloss |next |previous [-]

there are great books on the evolution of the retail side of policing. police spend most of their time responding to 911 and patrolling (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Reinvention_of_Poli...) as part of a change towards reactive policing.

how could it trend differently? you would have to come up with an alternative to 911 generally, which is very very hard.

in terms of preserving 911 but improving outcomes, the strongest consensus among experts is that police need more specializations, much like healthcare.

ultimately i think these problems exist everywhere in the world, and communities where homeless interacting with citizens & police issues are acute, like in san francisco, are actually the future, not the past, for other communities. coercion, like the kind that used to exist in California for the mentally ill specifically, is going away everywhere. it's not coming back.

there are many ideas but ideas that are not going to be enacted are not valuable, even if they are interesting to talk about, and once you get a sober look at what really does get enacted and why, the problem shifts from the specifics of mental health and policing interactions to politics and getting elected.

weakfish |root |parent |next [-]

I think you’re spot on about specialization. Police are chronically under-trained and unequipped to deal with such a broad swathe of what they’re expected to, from speeding tickets to mental health crises. As long as there’s a combination of ill training, high pressure situations, and bad pay, there’s going to be terrible outcomes.

I definitely think that there’s a ton of ways in which the American police state is a horrible shitshow that attracts power-hungry assholes, but I also think that the nature of the job as it is currently set up inevitably will lead to mistakes from cops who wouldn’t have violent behavior otherwise.

That doesn’t excuse it, of course, but it’s important to understand the circumstances that create horrible outcomes.

boredatoms |root |parent |next |previous [-]

I think theres a government organizational aspect, that in the US the police forces are often very small. If the forces we’re combining into larger units the specialization becomes economical.

As an example, in the state of New South Wales in Australia, its 1 police force organization for the whole state (8 million people)

spenrose |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Thanks for the book recommendation.

“the problem shifts from the specifics of mental health and policing interactions to politics and getting elected.” +1. Another response to your comment mentions forces being small, which touches on a fundamental dynamic: Baumol-ian labor costs. As long as policing is defined as “an officer showing up” it will grow inexorably more expensive. Many HN commenters are foot soldiers in the effort to oppose automation in the form of cameras, drones, etc.

airstrike |root |parent |previous [-]

I'm honestly amazed someone could point to San Francisco's homeless problem and its policing or lack thereof and say "that's the future"

gambiting |next |previous [-]

I was curious if 112 works in the US and apparently it does, but it routes to 911 anyway. Oh well, that's a shame - for context, 112 on this side of the pond will connect you to a general dispatcher which decides if the call should go to the police, firemen or medical dispatcher. Avoids the problem highlighted in the article.

chrisweekly |root |parent |next [-]

In the US, 911 is treated as a generic "emergency" dispatcher. I don't have stats handy but am pretty sure 911 calls are at least as likely to result in an ambulance as a cop (or fire truck).

tallanvor |root |parent |next |previous [-]

You understand that 911 is a central dispatcher, not to the police specifically, right? That they default more to the police is a completely different issue.

And I much prefer only having to worry about remembering 911. In Norway I'm supposed to remember to call 112 for the police, 110 if there's a fire, and 113 if I need an ambulance or am having a medical emergency.

chha |root |parent |next [-]

Sure. But if you dial 110 by mistake and meant to dial 112, they will either help you regardless (many emergency dispatchers are colocated) or simply transfer you to where you meant to call.

gambiting |root |parent |previous [-]

>>That they default more to the police is a completely different issue.

That is literally what this article is about though, no?

mixdup |root |parent |next |previous [-]

The linked article isn't entirely correct. Yes, in smaller counties and towns the 911 call center may be led by the police department but in any city of any meaningful size, the E911 call center is a stand alone department. Sometimes within a wider public safety department but that department usually includes fire in addition to police, and 911 is usually a peer to the police not subordinate

The focus should be on who is dispatched on the types of calls, not the organizational structure, because in most places it's already what you'd expect and not part of the police

There needs to be a force that can be dispatched to these types of calls, just like they know to send the Fire Department if it requires some kind of engineering/rescue but isn't a fire and isn't a medical call

ACS_Solver |root |parent |next |previous [-]

More accurately, 112 is the EU emergency number (and the GSM standard) but actual organization of emergency services is entirely national so who deals with your call and how will be local. The article also points out that handling of 911 is local in the US, even if apparently most 911 dispatchers are somehow subordinate to the police.

Also, like 112 forwards to 911 in the US, most cell networks in the EU will forward 911 to 112. American cultural dominance has made it so everyone knows 911 and even Europeans apparently end up dialing it.

jacquesm |root |parent |next [-]

I had a weird thing happening with that. I just returned from dinner in Germany driving through a semi-industrial area in the netherlands when I spotted a fire in one of the buildings we drove past. I called 112 and was connected to the German dispatcher and they couldn't connect me to the Dutch fire department. So they sent the German firetruck across the border and meanwhile alerted their Dutch colleagues as well. Apparently my phone had not yet re-registered with the dutch network even though we were already well across the border.

Kwpolska |root |parent |next |previous [-]

I wouldn't look as far as cultural dominance. If you're abroad and in an emergency, you're just going to dial the number you remember from your home country on autopilot, and there's no good reason not to support that if the number isn't already taken for something else.

ACS_Solver |root |parent [-]

Yes, sure. But I am talking about Europeans, not Americans, who know 911. I see kids here who are familiar with 911 just through American media, which is really the only source here for anyone to know the number.

cyclopeanutopia |root |parent |previous [-]

> American cultural dominance has made it so everyone knows 911 and even Europeans apparently end up dialing it.

This is a ridiculous opinion.

JumpCrisscross |root |parent |next |previous [-]

999 works in most places, too.

mindslight |root |parent |previous [-]

911 also decides where the call should go. The problem is that decision often includes the police for liability (sounds like the person might be violent, even if the root cause is mental health) and/or logistics (a fire usually requires traffic/crowd control) reasons, and they generally respond the quickest (because they don't need to put on their gear, are already patrolling, and have smaller vehicles).

Georgelemental |root |parent [-]

Whoever is initially dispatched to the call by 911 also have a say. E.g. if 911 dispatches police, but the police feel they want an ambulance on scene as well, they can request that. And vice-versa

slowhadoken |previous [-]

They reroute you to nonemergency where a female dispatcher chuckles at your very real problem so crime stats stay low?

sicktriple |root |parent [-]

> female dispatcher

Buddy, you are projecting so hard lmao.

Does she have blue hair and huge tits too?

BenjiWiebe |root |parent [-]

For whatever reason, most of the dispatchers for our county are female and it's been that way for as long as can remember. (Been volunteer firefighter for 11 years)

However I'd agree that gender is irrelevant here.