A new feature has been introduced by Apple on its iPhone 14 smartphone as well as on the latest models of its connected watch: in the event of a road collision, the device automatically contacts the emergency call center with the voice message of a robotic voice: “The person who owns this iPhone was in a serious car accident.”
But for several months now, these automatic distress calls have overloaded the engagement centres, which must carry out a verification of doubts at each alarm.
“Luckily, these are only false alerts”, underlines Gaëtan Lathion, spokesperson for the Valais cantonal police, Tuesday in the 7:30 p.m. of the RTS. “We have listed 65 since January 1, which represents an average of two calls per day of this type”, he specifies.
“It was just hard braking”
The algorithm, touted in a promotional clip from the Apple brand, often confuses the shock of an accident with the turbulence of a ski descent. In this case, the device emits a shrill sound and the user then only has a few seconds to cancel the triggering of the distress call.
“At the time, it was stress,” says a snowboarder who experienced it. “I said to myself that he was calling the emergency room. I have to stop that because there is no emergency at all”, he continues, admitting to having laughed a lot in a second time . “For me, it was just hard braking, like you do quite often in skiing or snowboarding.”
Updates made by Apple
Apple assures that updates were made to the software at the end of last year “in order to optimize the technology and reduce the number of false calls”. But the bug persists.
For Didier Pulicani, founder of the specialized site mac4ever.com, everything is played on microdoses of algorithms. “So in my opinion, it’s completely correctable,” says this specialist in new technologies.
According to the French police, the functionality of Apple has so far never given rise to real interventions. But following the ski season, regulators fear that downhill mountain biking will bring its share of false alarms.
Romain Boisset/oang