Emergency calling mobile devices, especially Apple products, are inundated with erroneous 911 calls, an ongoing problem for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department.

The fall and crash detection features of Apple iPhone 14 and Apple watch are designed to automatically call 911 when the device detects a sudden stop that may indicate a car crash.

However, this feature does not work as intended. In Colorado, the local YCSO issued an announcement warning residents to be careful with their device settings after reports of skiers rushing to dispatch centers by mistakenly calling 911.

Of the 911 calls YCSO received during April, disconnected calls accounted for 10.7%, an increase of over 100% since April 2022.

Between January 2022 and November 2022, the sheriff’s office averaged 234 disconnected calls per month. Things took a turn in December, when 349 disconnected calls were recorded that month, and the trend has continued ever since.

The increase coincides with the November 30th release of the iOS 16.1.2 operating system, whose update notes include “optimizations for collision detection on iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models.”

During January, YCSO received a total of 5,479 calls, 349 of which were hung up. In February, there were 332 disconnected calls out of 4,756. In March, it was 429 out of 5,384. And in April it was 563 out of 5,229.

“Summer is just around the corner, and Apple’s latest update is here [available]This is expected to significantly increase the number of unintended emergency calls, as 911 is called when people’s watches or mobile phones are severely dropped,” YSCO said in a press release. .

The agency claims that the increased number of calls is a significant drain on YCSO’s 911 operator resources, with only about 60% of its positions filled.

Last month, the county moved to allocate funds from Proposition 207 marijuana sales in Arizona to contingent recruitment and retention bonuses. However, the agency has not yet proposed disabling 911 functionality on mobile devices.

YCSO spokeswoman Heidi Howard said: “We’re making sure that the buttons are not easily accessible to young children, who are most likely to understand the functions of the buttons on their cell phones and mobile devices and accidentally dial an emergency call. Protect your mobile device,” he advised.

For iPhone 14 users,[設定]>[緊急 SOS]on your phone to change your phone’s collision detection to turn off auto-dial, or on your Apple Watch[My Watch]tab >[緊急 SOS]can be changed with .