Back in June, Apple revealed a new feature for emergency SOS which would let you video call with 911 dispatchers — all to help them get a better grasp of the situation. It’s just been announced that this feature will start going live in 911 dispatch centers sometime this fall.
According to CNET, RapidSOS and Prepared, which supply the communications for 911 services, say that they’ll be supporting this new feature in the coming months. According to RapidOS these capabilities will be offered “for free to existing emergency services customers” and the updates should cover 99% of the US population.
The support will allow 911 dispatchers to see whether a caller’s phone has video call and photo-sharing capabilities. If necessary they will be able to send a request to share live video or photos via secure connection. That way they can see what the situation is like more clearly, and share relevant information with first responders to help them better prepare.
It’s possible that responders could use the surroundings in a video to help narrow down a location, determine the severity of the issue at hand, or use that live video feed would be invaluable in cases where someone isn’t able to properly communicate what’s wrong — such as young children.
The feature is part of the existing emergency SOS feature that lets users call 911 without having to dial the number into their phone app first. And unlike some of the recent emergency SOS features Apple has added to iOS in recent years, this will utilize regular cellular signals — rather than a satellite connection.
We still don’t know full specifics of how this will work, or if callers can initiate video calls and photo sharing themselves. However Apple has confirmed that everything is shared via a secure connection — which should help preserve your own privacy.
However these new features will likely be inaccessible unless you have iOS 18 installed. The public beta version of the software is available to install right now, but the final release isn’t set to arrive until later this year — which is likely to be shortly before the Apple September event and iPhone 16 launch. So it’s good to know that dispatchers should be able to support the new safety features around the same time it’s being released to the masses.
