Local fire departments near skiing areas are struggling with a spate of unnecessary emergency calls that are being made automatically by people's smartphones when they fall down on the slopes.
Some of the newest smartphone models have a feature that automatically triggers an emergency call when they detect a strong impact. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry is calling for smartphone users to be cautious with this feature.
According to the agency, most of these calls come from models belonging to Apple Inc.'s iPhone 14 series, which has an automatic emergency function based on the scenario of a vehicle collision. When an impact is detected by the phone, its screen displays an emergency call slider with an alert such as "It looks like you've been in a crash," and sounds an alarm.
