Android smartphones have learned to send medical data to a person while he or she is calling the emergency service
Android phones now automatically send medical data when you call emergency services. Service specialists receive data on a person’s name, age, blood type, and emergency contacts through the RapidSOS function.
Last year, Google expanded the capabilities of Personal Safety in Android by enabling a potentially “life-saving” feature that can transfer important medical data (age, weight, blood type, allergies, etc.) from Personal Safety to the RapidSOS platform when a user calls emergency services.
More than 15,000 emergency and response services are connected to RapidSOS, which has been supporting the transfer of medical ID data from iPhone since 2020.
“This information is available for use prior to departure and prior to the arrival of responders,” said Tenea Reddick, director of the Baltimore City 911 Fire Department. “It saves us a lot of time because we already know what we are responding to and what we need to do.”
Since 2018, Android and iPhone devices have been able to send location data using the RapidSOS system. However, only newer smartphones with the Personal Safety program (including the latest Google Pixel, Nothing Phone 1, and others) can send this data on your behalf (and, in addition, display it on the lock screen).
You can enable emergency calling in the Security and Emergencies section of the settings, while also activating Personal Safety, and add more detailed information, such as whether you are an organ donor and emergency contacts.
