112 Emergency Call Day: No rescue without location data

If you want to help someone quickly, you need to know the location of the emergency. The EU sets rules for the further expansion and effectiveness of the single European emergency number 112.

In a ruling from 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union stipulated that the location of emergency calls to 112 must be determined "as reliably and accurately as is necessary to enable the emergency services to provide effective assistance to the caller" within the limits of technical feasibility. The background to the ruling was a murder following the rape of a 17-year-old girl in Lithuania. The teenager had been abducted on September 21, 2013. Locked in a car trunk, she was able to make a dozen calls for help to the Lithuanian emergency center via 112, but the location of the caller could not be determined at the time. The victim was burned alive in the trunk and could not be rescued.

Access to emergency services via the 112 emergency number is regulated in the EU by a delegated regulation. For example, for landlines, caller location information must be provided in conjunction with the physical address of the network termination point, such as street, apartment, floor or similar information. However, the majority of emergency calls in Europe are not made via a fixed device, but via a cell phone – In 2023, this accounted for 82% of all emergency calls on average across the member states.

For mobile networks, the location in meters must be specified to determine the maximum radius of the horizontal search area. If necessary, the height or vertical accuracy must also be specified, which can be relevant in cities with high-rise buildings or in parking garages, for example.

Advanced Mobile Location in the smartphone

Modern smartphones have AML (Advanced Mobile Location) integrated into their system, which enables more precise location determination. In the event of an emergency call, the smartphone automatically switches on GPS, WLAN and other sensors to determine its location and transmits this data to a central emergency call center via SMS or HTTPS. The control center that receives the emergency call can then retrieve this data from the central endpoint in Germany, making it easier to locate the cell phone. If the exact location of smartphones cannot be determined via AML, the emergency services should be able to fall back on network-based location determination (radio cell).

EU member states must regularly report to the European Commission on how they ensure effective access to emergency services via the 112 emergency number and implement EU requirements. According to the EU Commission's latest report from December 2024, "the use of caller location information obtained from mobile devices (...) has continued to improve in the EU". AML is therefore available in almost all member states. In its latest country report (PDF), the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) stated that only Cyprus, Malta and Poland are still missing in the EU. Poland has announced that it will introduce all AML functionalities in 2027.

Emergency call without a SIM card?

The murder victim in Lithuania used a smartphone without a SIM card – The phone number, device information and location were not transmitted at the time. In 19 EU member states, it is possible to call an emergency number without a SIM card. In Germany, however, the motto for years has been: No emergency calls without a SIM card. Emergency calls from cell phones without a mobile phone card are not permitted under the Emergency Call Ordinance. An "operational" SIM card is always required. The SIM read-only emergency call was abolished due to too many cases of misuse of emergency calls.

AML also only works with a SIM card and mobile phone reception. In contrast to Apple, Google uses its own extension of AML for Android with ELS (Emergency Location Service), which transmits more data to the control center via HTTPS protocol in an emergency and is not dependent on SMS. An Android device with WLAN access could therefore also transmit its location without a SIM card.

(kbe)