 |
| The European Court of Justice ordered that mobile phone operators hand over data enabling calls to 112 to be localised |
A horrific rape and murder of a kidnapped teen in Lithuania prompted the European Court of Justice on Thursday to order mobile phone operators to hand over data enabling the localisation of calls made to the international emergency number 112.
The
17-year-old girl, who was abducted and burnt alive in the boot of a car in
2013, made 10 desperate calls to 112 begging for help. However her number did
not show in the call answering centre, preventing her being located.
The girl's
family lodged a lawsuit, accusing Lithuania of failing to implement an EU
directive requiring telecom operators to provide for free caller information to
locate calls made to 112.
Thursday's
decision by the court ordered that all phone operators in the EU give that
information. They must do so even for phones which do not have a SIM card
inserted but which are still able to connect to the 112 service.
Currently
eight of the EU's 28 member states, among them France, do not allow phones
without a SIM card to make 112 calls, according to the European Emergency
Number Association.
In many
cases, that was to prevent children playing with old mobile phones accidentally
calling the emergency services number, it said.
The EU
forms the core of the countries using 112 as an emergency number for mobile
phones, originally offered on the GSM standard that Europe championed.
Later other
countries adopted the number too, often alongside their own national emergency
numbers, including Australia, China, India, Turkey and the United States.
The
European Court of Justice ordered that mobile phone operators hand over data
enabling calls to 112 to be localised.
No comments:
Post a Comment