Police Forces Over The World Have Started Warning Android Users Over The False Emergency Calls Being Placed By Accident

We have reported that police forces across the UK and some other regions have started warning users about a new feature on modern Android devices that have been overwhelming the switchboards by placing "silent" 999, the emergency number in the UK. The Emergency SOS feature is built into the Android operating system and can be activated if you press the power button repeatedly.

If you're in the UK, you should turn off the Emergency SOS feature on your Android device to avoid 'silent calls' from

Sadly, this issue is not limited to a specific Android OEM, and therefore, Google, the company responsible for developing software and adding the feature, has talked about how they have actually informed the manufacturer so they can resolve the issue.

The National Police Chiefs' Council has mentioned how the recent update to Android has "added a new SOS emergency function for devices to call 999 through the power button being pressed five times or more". Here is a Tweet from the National Police Chiefs' Council.

Nationally, all emergency services are currently experiencing record high 999 call volumes. There's a few reasons for this but one we think is having a significant impact is an update to Android smartphones...

thanks to @NYorksPolice pic.twitter.com/TbmRQgTsUe

— National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) (@PoliceChiefs) June 17, 2023

In addition to that, Devon and Cornwall Police have also mentioned how it took them 20 minutes to deal with these silent calls. The reason why these are being dubbed silent calls is that users who do dial these calls have no idea what they have gone through. The police forces have talked about how users who do accidentally dial these calls should stay on the call so they can inform the operator that it was by mistake so that actual calls can be tended to and there is no panic.

BBC reveals that Android users actually needed up filing 169 calls to 999  between 00:00 and 19:00 BST on a Sunday, of all days, which is an alarming number considering how this could easily overshadow an actual call for help. Even more alarming is that the problem is not limited to just the calls in the UK because, at the start of this month, European Emergency Number Association issued a warning that it had seen a "surge in automatic false calls originating from Android devices."

Google has confirmed to the source that this feature will be handled once various Android manufacturers will roll out updates to their devices to cater to this issue, and until then, the only suggestion one can have is that you should turn off the feature altogether until a new update takes care of it.

Source: BBC

Written by Furqan Shahid