Any mobile device capable of making emergency calls, but Apple products in particular, have been swarming 911 with accidental calls, creating an ongoing issue for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.
The fall and crash detection features on the Apple iPhone 14 and Apple watches are designed to automatically dial 911 when the devices detect a sudden stop, which is supposed to indicate a car crash.
However, the feature isn’t working as intended. There are reports of skiers in Colorado accidently flooding dispatch centers with accidental 911 calls and locally, YCSO has issued an announcement warning residents to be mindful of the settings on their devices.
During April, 10.7% of 911 calls received by YCSO were hangup calls, which is a more than 100% increase from April 2022.
Between January 2022 and November 2022, the sheriff’s office was averaging 234 hangup calls a month. That changed in December, when it logged 349 hangup calls for the month, and the trend has continued since then.
The uptick coincided with the Nov. 30 release of the iOS 16.1.2 operating system, which includes “crash detection optimizations on iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models” in its update notes.
During the month of January, YCSO took 5,479 total calls, of which 349 were hangups. In February, there were 332 hangup calls out of 4,756; in March, there were 429 out of 5,384; and in April, there were 563 out of 5,229.
“With summer on the horizon and the newest Apple update [available], which will make it so that people’s watches and phones will call 911 if the device is dropped too hard, the unintentional emergency call volume is expected to drastically increase further,” YSCO stated in a press release.
The department claims that the increased call volume is a significant resource drain on 911 operators at YCSO, which has only about 60% of those positions filled.
The county moved last month to allocate funding from Proposition 207 marijuana sales in Arizona to recruitment and retention bonuses for dispatchers. However, the agency still doesn’t suggest disabling the 911 feature on mobile devices.
“Know your phone/mobile devices and how the buttons function and safeguarding your mobile devices to avoid easy accessibility to young children who are much more likely to accidentally activate the unintentional emergency call,” YCSO spokeswoman Heidi Howard advised.
iPhone 14 users can change the crash detection features on their phone under Settings > Emergency SOS to turn off automatic dialing, or under the My Watch tab > Emergency SOS on an Apple Watch.
