To be clear, I’m talking about the facility to allow someone who has access to my locked phone to tap on an “Emergency” button and see:
Some free-format text (notionally my name, but it could be anything).
A list of emergency contacts (friends and family, not official services like 911 or 112) they can dial even when the phone is locked.
I don’t know if an ordinary honest person who finds my lost phone would even think to click on the “Emergency” button and see any of this contact information. I’m not even sure I would if I found someone else’s phone. To address the case of losing my phone, I’ve used the “display text on lock screen” feature to politely ask finders to e-mail an easy-to-type pseudonymous address. So I think the possible remaining benefit of the “Emergency information” feature is strictly for actual (medical) emergencies.
On a technical level, what happens if my phone is in airplane mode and (thinking of GrapheneOS here) the SIMs are disabled? Or I have two SIMs and only one is able to make calls? Will Android turn airplane mode off, turn all the SIMs on and try to call with both of them, or is it not that clever? I suppose it doesn’t really matter, as I’d assume a medical professional is not going to be too worried by the cost of a phone call and will have another device they can use.
On a personal safety/medical basis, I can see some benefit to this information being available if something happens to me. But I don’t have any specific medical conditions which first responders need to be informed about or for which speaking to friends and family would be helpful. Even if I did, couldn’t I just carry a printed card in my wallet with these details on and get most of the benefit without dragging my phone into this? If I’ve been in an accident, collapsed or have been mugged, my phone could easily be smashed or simply stolen, whereas a card in my pocket is likely to be intact and may have been left behind by a mugger.
I will usually have at least one credit or debit card with my real name in my pocket, but displaying vaguely personal information on the phone which is accessible to anyone feels wrong somehow.
Showing the name and/or phone number of close friends/relatives to anyone who steals or finds my phone feels a bit wrong too, in a way I struggle to quite pin down, even if I’ve asked them for permission first.
Outside of people with fairly specific medical needs, is this feature something it’s sensible to use or is it best ignored? I’ve read articles online which imply that providing this information is the sensible thing to do, but the more I think about it the less clearly I feel that’s true. Am I missing something?
As a volunteer in an area with very poor cellphone reception here is my take: We get cellphones turned in to lost & found regularly. For those phones that have emergency contact information we have a lot better success getting them back to their owners.
If you have text on the lock screen that gives contact information that would be just as good.
For those phones that we can’t contact the owner or the owner’s emergency contact we have nearly zero chance of getting the phone back to them. I think they end up in electronics recycling.
Regarding medical information, I suspect that very few responders will check either the phone or look for a card. They should, but most of the time they probably don’t. I base that on a relative who in their later years always had a bright orange medical info and directives card in their shirt pocket. At one time they were hospitalized and I was asked for that information for them. I responded that they always carried it with them and it should be in their shirt pocket. Nobody from the ambulance, emergency room, etc. had ever noticed or looked at it.
Airplane mode is typically (please check for your specific device) automatically disabled when placing an emergency call. It is a legal requirement that phones be able to make emergency calls without a SIM card. You might’ve noticed that when updating a phone, you will often see an explicit disclaimer stating something along the lines of, “You will not be able to make Emergency Calls while your device updates.”
Without a SIM / with a locked SIM, they will not be able to call your emergency contacts. I am also 99% certain that your phone will disable Airplane mode only for emergency numbers, not for emergency contacts (if at all).
You should really have a medical alert bracelet if you have conditions that paramedics need to be aware of. They probably won’t have time to dig through your phone on the off chance that you actually have relevant medical info there (most people don’t).
I don’t use it, but maybe it will be useful for you if you feel you are at risk of losing your phone and it would assist in having it returned.
Thanks guys. I must admit the idea of medical personnel stopping to fiddle around with someone’s phone in an emergency on the offchance it has useful information always struck me as a bit ridiculous, but since I’m not in the field I couldn’t rule it out as something that actually happens.
Since I don’t currently have any medical information to convey in an emergency (and if I did a bracelet would be a good idea), I don’t think there’s any value in giving real emergency contacts via this Android mechanism.
I should maybe add a dummy “emergency” contact which is just a name like “If found please contact” and the same pseudonymous e-mail address I show on the lock screen itself. The font on the lock screen for that text is pretty small and this just might add an extra chance that a finder does click on the “Emergency” button and see this address even if they overlook the message directly on the lock screen. Annoyingly you have to have a phone number to nominate a contact as an emergency contact, so I’ve had to set the name of the contact to “Please email foo@bar.com if found” and give a dummy number (5555555555).
I’m not even sure if someone’s finding your phone will lose his time to send you an email. No one do this and if I ever found your phone in the street, I’d thought “Is it a trap ? Why the hell do I have to send him an email ?”
Just ask someone you know if he agrees that you set his phone number for emergency calls, if he agrees then there’s no problem because It’s his choice.
If you’re that much concerned you can put a fake name (or just last name) on this contact and inform your friend/family member you edited his last name for privacy reasons. And you’re fine.
It’s interesting to see a different perspective here. For me - speaking generally, not just in the “I found someone’s phone” case - I’d much rather e-mail a random stranger than phone them.
I do travel quite a lot and when I’m abroad even someone from my own country might be reluctant to call because it risks incurring roaming charges, whereas e-mail is always free. But when I’m at home, I can see that some people might prefer to phone instead of e-mail.
I will think about adding a friend’s number to the emergency contact I’ve set up. Thanks for the suggestion.