Apple this morning
announced a new feature in iOS 12 which will automatically share your location with first responders when U.S. users dial 911 using their iPhone. The move is meant to address the problems with dialing emergency services from a cell phone, where outdated infrastructure has made it difficult to obtain a mobile caller’s location quickly and accurately, Apple says.
Approximately 80 percent of 911 calls come from cell phones, however, which is why it’s critical to fix this system.
In 2015, Apple launched HELO (Hybridized Emergency Location), which would estimate a caller’s location using GPS and Wi-Fi Access points. Today, Apple said it will additionally use
RapidSOS’s Internet Protocol-based data pipeline to securely share this HELO location data with 911 centers, to improve the response times even further.