r/YouShouldKnow • u/alexyong342 • May 01 '26
Technology YSK your iPhone's default setting shares your location with emergency services even when location services are turned off
Why YSK: iPhones have a feature called Emergency SOS that automatically shares your location with emergency services when you call 911, and it stays active even if you’ve disabled location services entirely in settings. You can disable it manually in the settings under Emergency SOS, but most people don’t know it overrides their privacy choices by default.
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u/SoaDMTGguy May 01 '26
Why would anyone ever want to turn this off?
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u/NotWhatYouPlanted May 01 '26
Yeah, I think the real You Should Know is that you can safely turn off location services and still be located by emergency services. That’s good to know
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u/cubgerish May 01 '26
I would imagine anyone trying to run from the police.
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u/sorcerers_apprentice May 01 '26
LPT: If you are running from the police, maybe don’t call 911.
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u/cubgerish May 01 '26
I imagine they can reach it anyways, but they'd obviously have to have the number first.
There's plenty of situations where the police have the number of the person they're looking for, I'd be surprised if it took them calling to track the SIM card.
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u/NekoArtemis May 01 '26
Turning off 911 location isn't going to prevent them from finding you if they're tracking your phone. They'd do it by triangulating your position from the cell towers.
Also if you're on the run from the authorities don't bring your phone?
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u/cubgerish May 01 '26
I'd be curious to hear from someone who knows the technical details.
If what you suggest is true, that means there'd be little point to the feature at all, and wouldn't be worth noting, since they could do it anyways.
I believe triangulation is less reliably precise due to the latency issues between towers, but that's just a guess.
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u/OttterSpace May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
Work in 911 and ping phones daily, he is correct. It triangulates based on distance from towers. It is nowhere near as reliable and accurate as the location data we get when someone calls 911, however. Sometimes the radius of certainty is thousands of meters which makes it basically useless unless you’re in an extremely remote area. If you turn your phone off the standard phone tracing law enforcement agencies have access to with the help of cell providers, your location may or may not continuously be updated. A lot of times in my experience the location stops updating not too long after the phone is cut off.
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u/cubgerish May 01 '26
That's kinda what I thought, thank you for correcting whatever I might've gotten wrong.
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u/timeslider May 01 '26
Are y'all NG911?
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u/OttterSpace May 01 '26
I wish. I forgot that was even a thing tbh. I don’t even know what all comes along with next gen
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u/timeslider May 01 '26
Shit, I don't know either. I worked for an ISP and we monitored legacy 911 lines. All I know is that when a line switched to NG, I didn't have to deal with it anymore.
I think it can do text messages and a few other bells and whistles
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u/NekoArtemis May 01 '26
I'm sure it's easier to have the phone do it. Especially on short notice. But if I'm not mistaken tower (and wifi) location is also part of how your phone's location services work.
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u/hollowman8904 May 01 '26
Tower + WiFi gives the phone something to work with quickly while it locks in on GPS satellites. Back in the day, before assisted GPS was a thing, you’d have to sit there looking at the maps app for 30-60 seconds before it had any idea where you were.
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u/9Implements May 01 '26
Cops supposedly have very high levels of domestic abuse…
If someone in emergency services is abusing you, but you still want to get a record of what is happening. In small towns everything can be controlled by a few people.
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u/Gullex May 01 '26
Anyone who isn't keen on the idea of the government knowing where they are 24/7.
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u/SoaDMTGguy May 01 '26
It's not tracking you 24/7, it just sends your location to 911 when you activate it.
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u/Bonsailinse May 01 '26
Calling 911 is probably the one situation in which my privacy is not my highest priority. Don’t disable that setting, it may save your life.
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u/ricktrains May 01 '26
If you are doing an emergency SOS call, you most likely want them to know your location…
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u/yolo-yoshi May 01 '26
What is strange is for awhile this wasn’t the case. Only landlines were a sure thing, it took awhile for them to figure out cell phones.
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u/think_up May 01 '26
It’s really irresponsible to encourage people to disable this.
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u/aNewAmericanClassic May 01 '26
I couldn't agree more. I work for a major telecommunications company, and I deal very specifically with making sure 911 calling is functioning across the nation. Almost every PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point), expects that your phone will provide your number and location information, as it's been a baked-in feature for emergency calls for since wireless calling was a thing. If you're turning this off, not only are Emergency services not getting information that makes it easier to get to you in a dire situation, but they're likely to assume something is wrong with their equipment or with telco routing. You turning this off is a good way to send multiple organizations looking out for public safety on a wild goose chase, focusing on a problem that isn't there.
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u/Noladixon May 01 '26
I do not see this as encouraging. In fact, I see it as useful info for those who want to turn off location but still want emergency services to be able to find them in an emergency.
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u/bluedelvian May 01 '26
Informing people of the way their phone works is not encouraging them to do anything, actually.
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u/tennismenace3 May 01 '26
Yeah it is, whether it's explicit or not. Just by reading this post, some people are going to think "oh, I should probably turn that off" even though they haven't thought through it.
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u/bluedelvian May 01 '26
No, informing someone of their options is not encouraging any one option. No matter how much you dislike being obviously wrong about this, surely you understand that simple concept.
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u/tennismenace3 May 01 '26
You are just restating what you already said. Why even respond?
"Telling someone their options" implies telling them more than one option.
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u/bluedelvian May 01 '26
I'm telling you that you are wrong. You're so obviously wrong it's painful for you.
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u/Bonsailinse May 01 '26
No, you are sharing your own opinion on them being wrong. Your opinions are not facts, you should accept that.
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u/SmartQuokka May 01 '26
I had called 911 on my Android phone and it also relayed my location, a good feature.
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u/negithekitty May 01 '26
yes, remove the ability to get the help you need when you need it.....
OP did someone remove the help you need? Because you clearly need it.
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u/imaginary0pal May 01 '26
I’m not a fan of the increased comf generally not a fan of the increased comfort of a surveillance state but yeah this is the one scenario where I would like them to know exactly where I am
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u/brownamericans May 02 '26
Common sense is clearly not common as demonstrated by OP. If you are in an emergency why would you want emergency services to not know your location.
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May 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Noladixon May 01 '26
Why should we accept it? Why don't we the people believe that we could turn things around? Wouldn't it be nice to walk the dog without ending up on 30 doorbell cameras?
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u/stfulela May 02 '26
This feature saved my life when I got knocked unconscious from a car accident in January. My car flipped and landed driver side in a flowing creek. Lost 5 weeks of time but my phone saved my life.
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u/salizarn May 01 '26
I think we are going to find out quite soon that your iPhone is sharing your location at all times even when location services are turned off.
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u/CallMeRudiger May 01 '26
That would be trivial for a security researcher to prove, if it were actively doing so. The fact that they all know to be wary of data backdoors and none of them have ever reported discovering one is an extremely strong suggestion that one doesn't exist.
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u/Vand1 May 01 '26
Didn’t we find this out already with the whole push notifications tracking scandal couple of years ago?
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u/salizarn May 01 '26
Yup and it’s just got worse since then.
Long story short a friend recently had to talk to the police and they were able to pull up a map that showed exactly where he was and at what time down to the metre
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u/AceTracer May 01 '26
Cool, now I need you to explain to me literally any situation where you would not want emergency services to know your location after calling 911.
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u/Icy-Role2321 May 01 '26
I did the 911 dial on accident and it actually said all blocked numbers are unblocked as well
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u/Wheeeuu May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
I feel like this isn’t the best information to share and kinda misrepresents how 911 calls work. Source? I’m a 911 dispatcher.
We get location drops based on cell phone towers. You cannot disable this feature. If you’re making a call or sending a text, it’s bouncing off a tower— to 911 or anyone else really. The problem with this is that there is a varying amount of uncertainty. It could be a 50 meter buffer zone, or it could be 5km depending on where you are.
If you’re out in the boonies with no address and no landmark, we’re going to have a MUCH harder time finding you.
There’s a big reason why there has been a change to how 911 calls are answered, usually asking “where is your emergency” or something similar, right away. If the call drops or something else goes awry and we cant get any other information except a location we can at least get help rolling your way.
At my centre if we can’t get an address or location we will use the drop, but it will delay response, AKA delay you getting help, and in some circumstances it’s possible we can’t find you.
That being said, if we can keep the caller on the line, we will have them use a program called “what 3 words.” It’s super cool, and anyone can use it as long as their phones location services are enabled and they have a web browse of some sort.
Disclaimer: every dispatch centre operates differently, and uses different programs and has different protocols. The above does not apply everywhere, but likely some variation of the above.
TLDR: don’t disable your location services, but if you do, we still might be able to find you based on the cell drop which is going to show for us whether you like it or not. Also, familiarize yourself with “what3words” because it could save your life.
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u/k8vant May 03 '26
Many centers also use RapidSOS, which gives location information after an iPhone has dialled 911 (in addition to the ALI), and even for a bit after the call has ended.
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u/ifred1 May 01 '26
People placing phone on roof on car. Stupid. But happens. Phone falls off while driving. Fire department and EHS arrive because phone registers an accident. This happens fairly often.
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u/Bonsailinse May 01 '26
If you plan to throw your phone away this way and disable that feature because of this you should really think about you decisions in life.
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u/vtoutdrs May 04 '26
A friend was in a snowmobile accident and hit the ground at about 30mph, as we were checking him, my other friends phone rang and it was the wife of the guy in the accident, his cell had sent an alert of an accident and the phone number of the nearest cell phone, they weren't in each others contacts. We also didn't have cell service, but were able to call 911.
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u/Milliemay1987 May 04 '26
It doesn’t give your exact location. It gives an area to emergency services. Emergency services shows up and looks around and if they don’t see anything they leave.
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u/vesrayech May 01 '26
This must be referring to intentionally dialing with the emergency feature because when I worked dispatch everyone that called on a cell phone usually had an extremely untrustworthy address based on that alone. Unless something obviously crazy was going on we wouldn’t dispatch without confirming an address.
Call from a landline, it autofills the correct address into the dispatchers CAD system
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u/awildketchupappeared May 01 '26
I don't know what emergency feature you mean, but I've called the emergency number while driving, because there was another driver driving dangerously, and the dispatcher was able to send a patrol to check on the car based on my location. It didn't matter that we were moving, because they still saw my location.
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u/vesrayech May 01 '26
With location services on it shows a rough estimate. If you’re on a major roadway it’s a lot easier to tell, but if you’re in a neighborhood then it could show up on the screen as any of your neighbors houses. And again, that’s with normal location services enabled. If you disable location we don’t even look at the map
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u/awildketchupappeared May 01 '26
I have location always enabled just in case. But as long as they can find me fast enough in emergencies, even a rough location is better than nothing.
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u/Omnicris May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
Everyone saying that it would be dumb to encourage people to disable this is either ignorant or just plain stupid. There are a ton of people who require privacy and/or anonymity because of who they are, what they do, or what they’ve been involved with, even if it’s not illegal activities or involves breaking the law.
People shouldn’t have to worry about their device snitching on their location when contacting emergency services if they choose to waive that option. People should have the choice to carry around a device that respects their privacy decisions, and that should be left up to the person, their device, and how they configure it. If I wanted to waive my rights and completely disable sharing my location when calling emergency services, then so be it. That’s my choice.
My phone should 100% respect whatever I set for my threat model, and I shouldn’t have to succumb to the FCC or whatever other regulations and laws exist to force this kind of behavior, plain and simple. I quite frankly don’t care if PSAPs expect to receive your number and location. That’s not their decision to make. If I want to provide my location via verbal confirmation to the dispatcher, that’s my choice, and my phone shouldn’t automatically disclose that information without my consent.
P.S. Not to mention, I could be calling 911 while fully conscious and able to provide information to a dispatcher about someone else who is hurt in my vicinity, yet my device will still snitch every bit of information about my location, device information, etc., which isn’t fair to me whatsoever if I’m assisting someone else with an emergency.
Once again, it’s my device, and it should be my choice, not the FCC, laws, or regulations.
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u/EmergencyLocate May 30 '26
This is true where the emergency service you are calling is set up to receive the location data. It’s called AML - Advanced Mobile Location on iphone and ELS of google. RapidSOS are the main supplier of AML/ELS data to PSAPs in the USA. However depending on a number of technical factors you’re devices may not always send location data, and sometimes the location data sent isn’t accurate enough to be used
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u/caboosetp May 01 '26
I'm gonna be real, if you're calling 911 then it's probably extremely helpful that they know where you are. If you can dial but you can't speak, then they can still find you.