Japanese emergency services in Nagano received 100+ false calls that were mainly from the iPhone 14 Crash Detection feature. The system triggers the services for users who were going down on ski slopes and other scenarios except for a real car crash.
An attendee holds a new iPhone Pro during a launch event for new products at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, on September 7, 2022. - Apple unveiled several new products including a new iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. They also released three Apple watches and new AirPods Pros during the event. by BRITTANY HOSEA-SMALL/AFP via Getty Images
(Photo : BRITTANY HOSEA-SMALL/AFP via Getty Images) An attendee holds a new iPhone Pro during a launch event for new products at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, on September 7, 2022. - Apple unveiled several new products including a new iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. They also released three Apple watches and new AirPods Pros during the event.
False Calls from Crash Detection System
When Apple introduced the newest feature for the iPhone 14 series, a lot of people raved about it as it alerted emergency services when the device detected a serious car crash. While this may be necessary, several stories were shared online for false alarms to different emergency services.
Based on a report from Japan News, the fire department of the Kita-Alps in Nagano, Japan received 919 emergency calls between December 16th last year to January 23rd, 134 of those were false calls from ski areas that were triggered by the iPhone 14's Crash Detection System.
Users were believed to be skiing or snowboarding in the area when the alarm alerted the services, only finding out that there were no serious injuries and accidents happened. A countdown begins with loud sirens on the users' devices when the iPhone detects a crash. But during activities like this, users may not hear this.
The fire department usually calls the number to check the situation, but it was reported that smartphone users were not able to follow up on the situation. This led to putting a burden on operations as the department will be needing to call again sometime later.
While the automatic function can be turned off to prevent false alarms, a firefighter from the department stated, "It's an effective function in the event of a really serious accident, so we can't ask users to turn it off."
The fire department reminded the people to inform the authorities right away once they knew that a false alarm notified the department.
9To5Mac reported that Apple is engaging with several local emergency services that are currently receiving these calls from Crash Detection, in an effort to decrease problems and delays with the departments' operations.
Apple's Crash Detection feature is available on iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch SE Second Generation, and Apple Watch Ultra.
The Cupertino giant and other authorities are recommending users to leave the feature enabled. But if you want to turn off the Crash Detection feature, go to Setting -> Emergency SOS -> turn off the 'Call After Serious Crash' setting.
Apple Insider reported that another incident also happened in Six Flags Great America. The report suggests that if users were not able to cancel the emergency calls in situations like this, the best way to avoid it is to enable Airplane mode before getting into rides.
