Apple Crash Detection: Emergency responders have a growing ‘problem’ – Times of India

Apple wanted to help people get rescue support in case of emergency and introduced the Crash Detection feature in the iPhone 14 series of smartphones. However, media reports suggested that the feature had been sending false crash detection alerts to first responders. In a recent development, these erratic false alarms from the feature are becoming a growing problem for emergency responders because of winter sports.
As per Minnesota Public Radio (via 9to5Mac), false alarms from the Crash Detection feature are becoming a problem because people are now engaging in winter activities like skiing, snowboarding, and snowmobiling. These sports include fast starts, stops and jolts when a person falls during skiing – enough to fool iPhones and Apple Watches into thinking that the owner/ wearer has been in an accident.

People in the past have also reported false alarms made while they were riding a rollercoaster as well as when their phones fell while they were riding a motorcycle.
Despite multiple reports of successful calls made to emergency responders to help crash victims, it is unfortunate that the problem does not have an immediate solution.

How does Crash Detection feature works
Whenever the feature detects a severe car crash, it sounds an alarm and displays an alert on iPhone or Apple Watch that says, “It looks like you have been in a crash.” If a user can’t see their iPhone screen after the crash or is unable to respond, the device will read out the alert and will display an Emergency Call slider to call emergency services.
The phone will also send a message to share the crash location with emergency contacts if the user has added any. The feature comes enabled as a default setting on supported Apple devices. Apple explained in the past that the feature uses data from the iPhone 14 microphone that detects loud sound levels and other characteristics of crashes.