Geolocation boosted in 112 emergency hotline
The location of people placing calls to the European emergency number 112 was improved as of July 15 after the General Secretariat for Civil Protection deployed the Emergency Location Service (ELS) service for mobile phones using the Android operating system.
ELS sends enhanced location data directly from Android handsets to emergency services when an emergency call is made.
Geolocation is activated automatically through existing mobile telephony technologies (Wi-Fi, GPS, mobile telephony antennas and sensors that are present in the smart mobile phones).
The accuracy is better than 100 meters, even in indoor areas in 90 percent of the cases. Until now, geolocation was based on the antenna station of the area from where the call was made, which provided an accuracy of 500 meters to 40 kilometers.
The official deployment of ELS followed a test operation that took place from June 20 to July 14 in Attica.
The new service is the result of the Civil Protection’s partnership with Google, local mobile network operators and the Digital Governance Ministry.
