The Emergency Caller Location Information (ECLI) service was introduced to New Zealand in May 2017, offering high-precision location information for smartphones running Google’s Android system – approximately 70 per cent of the New Zealand market – and lower-precision location information for most other mobile devices. The high-precision location solution was extended to mobile phones running Apple’s iOS operating system in April 2018.
When you dial 111 from a mobile phone, data that helps determine the location of your handset may be sent to the ECLI system. This data is provided by your mobile network operator or by your handset.
Location services are switched on only when 111 calls are made, and then returned to the caller’s original settings after the call has terminated. All location data will only be held for 60 minutes and will then be deleted.
In its first year, ECLI was used to help verify locations of nearly 400,000 emergency calls. When further enhancements to the system are completed by mid-2020, that number is expected to jump to 780,000.
The ECLI service is overseen by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment, and run in partnership with emergency services (New Zealand Police, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, St John and Wellington Free Ambulance), Datacom, Comtech Telecommunications Corp, and mobile network operators (2degrees, Spark and One New Zealand).
The caller location system enables police, fire and ambulance services to respond more quickly to emergency events from mobile phones, using the system data to help them verify the location of 111 calls from mobile phones.
Visit the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment website for more information about how the Emergency Caller Location Information system works.
