Raed Arafat, the head of the Department for Emergency Situations, DSU, announced today a radical decision regarding the operation of the 112 system and the location of calls. According to it, STS will promote the application much more strongly call 112, which has integrated technology Advanced Mobile Location, which I told you about yesterday, and which makes exact localization based on GPS, but under certain conditions.
Raed Arafat also says that the Romanian law will also be amended, and this is because the provisions of the GDPR would prevent the 112 service from locating people when they make a phone call, due to the European provisions for the protection of personal data. Raed Arafat claims that the person's consent is needed when calling 112 in order to be located, and the law will be amended so that consent is given automatically when calling.
Raed Arafat: RADICAL decision regarding 112 and Emergency Calls
The idea of promoting the call 112 application more is bad, because in emergency situations people don't look for various applications through phones, but call 112 directly from the standard interface. Moreover, the application is useless without activated GPS and internet, so instead of promoting it, it would be better to change the law and implement AML for 112, that system automatically taking the location data when the call is initiated.
"We determined that in the short term there is already an application of STS that must be promoted until a more modern system is implemented. As many citizens as possible should download this application on their phone. The legislation regarding the Advance Mobile Location system will be amended. We are preparing the amendment texts. These could be adopted through the GEO, when the Parliament returns from vacation. The issue of the consent of the person who calls 112 was raised. With all the regulations regarding access to personal data, the issue was raised that we can give information about where a person is, and they do not want this. We will introduce into the law that if a person calls 112, he automatically gives his consent for location data."
The 112 emergency service needed this technology for years and years, some saying that it is not difficult to implement, but now it is part of a project tendered by STS, blocked by others through appeals. Why STS did not implement AML technology for the 112 emergency service, no one says, and we will never find out the truth, because this is how things are in Romania, where even after people die, nothing changes.
It is not known how long it will take until the technology is implemented, but it also does not work on non-smart phones, which anyway do not have E-ALERT.
