Punters at Download festival over the weekend were encouraged to take off their smartwatches or put them on airplane mode, after it was revealed by police prior to this year’s event that hundreds of 999 were mistakenly made by the devices in previous years.
It seems there were 700 erroneous emergency calls from Download in 2023. The tech assumed that the person wearing the watch had been in collision, when in fact they were probably just enjoying themselves in the moshpit. “All those calls had to be assessed,” said Leicestershire Police in a statement. “With three outbound call attempts completed to ensure there is no threat, risk or harm, taking our contact handlers away from answering true emergency calls.”
