Google Launches Emergency Location Service Feature for Android Smartphones in India

Google announced on Tuesday that it has launched its Emergency Location Service (ELS) in India for compatible Android devices. This means that users facing an emergency can call or text emergency service providers, including the police, health care professionals, and firefighters, and ELS will share their “precise location” as soon as it is initiated. Uttar Pradesh has become the first state in the country to operationalise ELS for Android devices. The feature was earlier rolled out to devices running Android 6 and newer versions. However, ELS requires a state's authorities to integrate it with their services for activation.

How Google's ELS Service Works

The search giant said that it has activated its ELS feature on Android smartphones in India, and the built-in emergency service will help Android users send their location via call or SMS to get help from emergency service providers, like police, medical staff, and firefighters. Google said that ELS on Android gathers data from the device's GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular networks to ascertain the user's precise location, and claims it can determine a person's location with an accuracy of up to 50m.

However, the ELS feature requires local wireless and emergency infrastructure operators to activate support for the same. In India, Uttar Pradesh has become the first state to do so, “fully” operationalising the service for Android devices. The state police, in collaboration with Pert Telecom Solutions, has integrated ELS support with the emergency number 112. It is a free-of-charge service that only tracks a user's location when 112 is dialled from an Android phone.

Additionally, the tech giant said that the ELS functionality was rolled out to all compatible devices running Android 6.0 and later versions. To date, the company claims, ELS in Android has facilitated over 20 million calls and SMS messages, even if a call is dropped within seconds after it is answered. ELS is powered by Google's machine learning-based Android Fused Location Provider.

Google also says that the feature is only available to emergency service providers, and that ELS never collects or shares the precise location data with the tech giant. Hence, the location data is sent directly to the respective authorities.

Google recently launched the Emergency Live Video feature for Android devices, which allows users to share their camera feed during an emergency with the responder during a call or SMS. However, the emergency service provider has to request the user to get access to the same. The prompt is displayed on the screen as soon as the responder requests a video from their end. With a single tap, a user can accept and provide a visual feed.