When emergency services locate your device 

Around one in five calls to 111 are people calling about someone else rather than needing help themselves, for example reporting someone who is missing or considered to be in danger.

In situations like this emergency services can, in some circumstances, locate a person’s mobile phone, even if they haven’t called 111, through the Device Location Information Service (DLI). This might include a call transferred from a non-emergency number (e.g. Health Line, *555).

This helps emergency services to more quickly locate and help a person who’s at risk.

DLI can only be used: 

  • At the request of an emergency service provider; and
  • When the emergency services consider there is a serious threat to a person’s life or health 

How it works

New Zealand's emergency services now have extra capability to help them find people
in danger faster. 

When you make a call to 111, the emergency services can immediately source the location of the mobile phone you're calling from. But nearly one in five emergency callers are reporting a risk or threat to someone else.   

Until now, it has been a manual process for the emergency services to get a phone location from mobile network operators which took time, and in an emergency, every second counts. Now, the new device location information service allows for a faster response. It lets the emergency services quickly find the general location of the phone of a person who's in danger, even when the person's not making or answering calls. 

Emergency services can only use the DLI service to prevent or reduce a serious threat to someone's life or health and they have to record why they think that's the case. 

Here's how the service works to protect New Zealanders safety and their privacy too. When the emergency services assess that a person is threatened or at serious risk, they send a request for device location information to an authorised commander within the police. The commander must consider the reasons given and agree there is a serious threat to life or health before they approve the request. Once approved, the DLI technology automatically accesses the mobile network to get the estimated location of the at -risk person's phone and generates a map reference. The emergency service dispatchers are then able to send help. 

A text is then sent to the phone telling its owner that the phone has been searched for and providing the reason why. In some situations, the text can be delayed for up to a week or not sent at all if sending it creates a risk to the well -being or safety of the individual. 

All DLI searches and the reasons for them will be recorded and regularly reported to the Privacy Commissioner. And anyone who has notified their phone was searched for, can ask the emergency services about that. 

Over 2 million emergency calls are made in NZ. The Device Location Information Service helps deliver the emergency response New Zealanders need with the safeguards and transparency that we all deserve.

Infographic showing how the Emergency Caller Location Information system works

Device Location Information for Emergency Services

How your information and privacy is protected 

The key steps to safeguard your privacy are: 

  1. A robust authorisation process 
  2. Transparency – notifying you when your information has been collected, provided it’s safe to do so
  3. Monitoring and reporting on how DLI is used 

Read the Privacy Statement here

1: Authorisation

Emergency services have to go through a robust authorisation process prior to requesting device information, to ensure they are complying with the Code.

2: Notification

When location information is collected from a mobile device, a follow-up text notifying the individual concerned will be sent as soon as possible, provided it is safe to do so, from the emergency service provider.

The text message will include the date, time, duration of the information collection and categorise the purpose of collection, for example a search and rescue event.  

The follow-up text can be delayed for up to seven days, or not sent at all, in situations where the safety or physical or mental health of a person may be compromised.  

People who get a text can challenge the collection of their location information if they believe it to have been unnecessary. Find out how to get more information or make an enquiry here.

3: Monitoring and reporting

NGCC must maintain a log of all disclosures of device location information and provide this to the Privacy Commissioner on a quarterly basis. The disclosure log requires reporting on the purpose relied upon to obtain the location information, the grounds for the belief that it was necessary, the date and duration of disclosure, and whether the person concerned was notified. 

NGCC and the emergency services will also monitor the use of the service through their internal assurance processes. 

Benefits of DLI

DLI is faster and more streamlined than the previous approach of having to make a manual request to mobile network operators to collect location information from a device.

It provides an approximate geographical location, and the frequency that location information is collected can be updated as needed, making it easier for emergency service providers to continue checking for a location.  
In an emergency, every second counts.

Accuracy of DLI 

While you can choose to share the location of your mobile handset, it is not possible for anyone else to enable, or ‘turn on’ high precision location capabilities such as GPS, unless you have called 111.  This is because manufacturers have set the system up to protect location settings unless you make an emergency call.  

This means DLI can only use network-based positioning and as a result, locations returned will span a larger geographical area when compared to handset positioning.  While there is a high level of confidence that the device will be in this larger area, it is less precise than handset positioning.  

Contact us

Find out how to get more information or make an enquiry here.