NSW Police urges boaters to turn off phone, watch automated distress calls
Choppy water is triggering some smart devices to think boaters have been in a severe road crashNSW Police has urged boaters to turn off automated distress call features on smartphones and smart watches to cut down on the number of false alerts reported to emergency services.
Marine Area Command, which includes water police, issued what it called an important message for smart watch and phone users at the weekend urging them to check the settings on their devices so they did not mistakenly dial Triple Zero.
“Choppy water conditions have been setting off devices in some cases,” the statement says.
When asked by boatsales.com.au, a spokesperson for NSW Police declined to say how many calls emergency services had received that turned out to be false alarms from people out on boats.
The Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority, which has responsibility for Australia’s Triple Zero emergency call network, was also asked for comment.
Automated crash detection is a feature built into devices such as iPhones and Apple Watches. The devices use sensors to work out if it believes the user or wearer is involved in a severe crash, and will automatically contact emergency services if the wearer or user does not respond to an audible alert or message displayed on the device.
The service is designed to call for help even if the person it is linked to is not conscious. If you’ve not responded to a visual prompt in 10 seconds, Apple devices will emit a loud tone, and both the iPhone and Apple Watch will vibrate violently for another 10 seconds.
The phone will then dial emergency services and play a recorded message.
Information provided to emergency services includes the device's location as latitude and longitude coordinates. Apple says the call will share your location regardless of whether you have enabled Location Services.
In Australia, the automatic call will trigger police, ambulance and fire services to respond.
Apple allows users to turn off the automated emergency call feature on one device, which will also switch the service off on all other connected devices.
On an iPhone, users can open the Settings app, tap “Emergency SOS” and then “Turn off Call After Severe Crash”.
On an Apple Watch, you will need to open the Apple Watch app on the linked iPhone, go into the My Watch tab, tap “Emergency SOS” and then “Turn off Call After Severe Crash”.
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