[HN Gopher] Japan skiers' smartphones making unnecessary emergen...
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Japan skiers' smartphones making unnecessary emergency calls
Author : mef
Score : 81 points
Date : 2023-01-29 16:56 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (japannews.yomiuri.co.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (japannews.yomiuri.co.jp)
| alana314 wrote:
| I got two of these alerts while snowboarding. I was able to catch
| them in time.
| zackangelo wrote:
| I stopped wearing my Apple Watch while surfing because this
| feature would trigger almost every time. It's made worse by the
| fact that the touch screen is inoperable when the phone senses
| that it's wet, so it's difficult to cancel.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Why didn't you just disable the feature? In the Apple Watch app
| on your iPhone, tap "Emergency SOS" and then turn off "Severe
| Crash" and/or "Fall Detection".
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Why would it be enabled by default? That's crazy.
| nahkoots wrote:
| > The Gujo City Fire Department in Gifu Prefecture, which has
| many ski resorts within its jurisdiction, received 351 emergency
| calls between Jan. 1 and Jan. 23. Nearly 40% -- 135 calls -- were
| made erroneously.
|
| I wonder how many of the 351 emergency calls and how many of the
| 135 erroneous calls were made by a phone's automatic crash
| detection system. It's obviously not great that the automatic
| system is placing so many erroneous calls, but it may be worth
| the burden on Japan's (or any other country's) emergency services
| if such calls aren't an overwhelming majority.
| boredpudding wrote:
| But if 99% of the automatic calls are false, the feature won't
| work. Because the 1% that is a proper automatic call, will be
| ignored and assumed false as well.
| mildavw wrote:
| US ski patroller here, this is happening via Apple Watches here
| too. Not nearly as many as in the article, though. Couple times
| per month per resort.
| theptip wrote:
| We should remember to evaluate interventions based on the cost
| and rate of false positive/negatives, vs. the benefit of true
| positive/negatives.
|
| In this case, the pertinent benefit to weigh against is the
| benefit of fall detection, particularly for elderly people, but
| also for active folks e.g. falling while cycling.
|
| Obviously we'd rather not make false emergency calls, all else
| being equal. But it could be worth it on its face, we need to
| analyze the benefits to know.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Flooding emergency services with fake incidents can easily
| start killing people due to help being called just because some
| idiot manager thought 'this is good marketing so lets get this
| done quickly' and pushed half-baked solution. I ain't talking
| about theory, read this thread about feature disabled and still
| calling 911, imagine if you had phone in trunk of the car.
|
| Glad it doesn't seem to be enabled in Switzerland, my wife is a
| doctor, worked on emergency and also as a doctor with
| ambulances so has perspective from other side. This is outright
| criminal behavior from Apple, easily to get sued for billions
| in each bigger market (not saying they would automatically
| lose, they can play well meaning idiot at the courts but PR
| effect is nevertheless properly bad).
| theptip wrote:
| Right, but just to be clear, that is the sort of "cost of
| false positive" that I was talking about considering.
| rchaud wrote:
| Shouldn't people who want this have a specific device or
| service that handles the logistics of rescue, like Onstar?
|
| From the looks of it, Apple gets to market this feature but
| shoves the work off to public rescue services, which are then
| burdened by false positives due to Apple unilaterally letting
| their phones dial emergency numbers and putting the onus on the
| user to handle 'impact classification'.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The best camera is the one that's with you.
|
| And also the best heart rate monitor and fall detector is the
| one you're always carrying (smartwatch). Same with this
| feature on the phone.
|
| Of course people won't buy a specific "call the authorities
| when I get in a crash" -device and carry it with them.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| I don't think so, no. By this logic, all roads would be toll
| roads, all schools would be private, etc. I would not like to
| live in that society. If Android or other device
| manufacturers had equivalent features, they can have that
| too. We can discuss what the maximum false positive rate can
| legally be obliged to be, but I think having it be 0% is not
| a net positive for society.
| [deleted]
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| Anyone who's been skiing with an actual fitness watch over the
| last 5+ years knows this feature doesn't work even with devices
| that gather and understand more vitals than annual consumer
| iDevices. It's a shame the gadget geeks, techies, and Apple
| couldn't learn from others before going down this path.
| hinkley wrote:
| Can I just take a minute to say how salty I am that the "hike"
| exercise doesn't ask for how heavy a pack I'm carrying?
|
| They estimate is that you add 2 seconds to your mile pace for
| every extra pound. You can't tell me that doesn't affect
| caloric intensity. I had a problem, last year that the heavier
| the pack the worse Apple would report my cardiac fitness. Yeah
| of course I'm shorter of breath today, I'm carrying 20 lbs!
|
| I feel like this whole part of the ecosystem is just in
| maintenance mode. You can't learn much when you stop doing.
| brianwawok wrote:
| I'd assume they would need a new category called backpack. I
| suspect 99.9% of hikers using an Apple watch don't have a
| backpack.
| [deleted]
| NickBusey wrote:
| > I suspect 99.9% of hikers using an Apple watch don't have
| a backpack.
|
| I'm sorry, but what?
|
| This is a wild claim to assert without any data whatsoever.
|
| You think only one in one thousand people on a _hike_ are
| carrying a backpack?
| neffy wrote:
| Get the feeling the software is being developed by people
| who never stray far from their desks?!
| hulitu wrote:
| Maybe they do but outside working hours.
|
| Testing is expensive.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Like almost all things Apple Watch, I'm pretty sure they
| estimate calorie usage by heartrate
| hinkley wrote:
| I have to wear my smartwatch backward and upside down because it
| kept sending random emojis to my partner when I was doing yard
| work. Drove her nuts. Either flexion or just the glove would push
| the button, causing it to take input. If the last thing I looked
| at was messages from her, then she'd get responses out of some
| cheesy horror movie.
|
| I haven't tried again with my latest model. I would have thought
| the lock would prevent such things, but it didn't, and I am
| starting to forget the repro steps.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > The department usually calls the number to check the situation
| when it receives an automated alert but there is no follow-up
| from the smartphone's user. If the user does not answer, the
| department calls again sometime later
|
| This doesn't make any sense to me. The user has been in an
| (assumed) crash where they are presumably unable to call 119
| themselves, but the fire department tries calling back to see if
| it was an actual emergency?
|
| Then if nobody answers, instead of rushing over there, they try
| again in a little while?
| mattboardman wrote:
| If they are resource constrained then this just seems like a
| form of triaging where non-automated calls are prioritized. I
| don't see the problem with this approach if they are seeing a
| lot of false positives from automated sources.
| maccard wrote:
| Tangential, but I was looking into a monitored alarm system
| recently for my home. For PS50/month, the alarm company will
| respond to an alarm and try to phone me. If they cannot get
| through to me, or I confirm I'm not home, they will dispatch a
| guard to arrive within 30 minutes. They will assess whether or
| not there is someone there and will call the police if there
| is, wait until they arrive, and charge PS70 per callout with
| some standing charge for however long they wait for the police
| too.
|
| Needless to say I went with a Ring alarm, which is PS8/month,
| and will notify me immediately, and I can call the police
| myself.
| taeric wrote:
| I think it is safe to assume that the "don't rush over there"
| behavior is a learned one. After rushing over many times for
| what appears to be a false alarm, you start to think more of
| the calls are false alarms.
|
| There is even a parable about this. Several of them, actually.
| :D
| pflenker wrote:
| I am surprised this edge case exists - last time I set up an
| iPhone with Apple Watch I had to specifically enable the feature
| (it was for an elderly person so it made sense)
| jonplackett wrote:
| This seems like a pretty easy thing to fix right, a quick GPS
| check to see if you're anywhere near a road?
| dvhh wrote:
| What if you're driving off the road ?
| softskunk wrote:
| [flagged]
| philip1209 wrote:
| In the USA, we have "no duty to deal"
| https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
| squarefoot wrote:
| It's their thing and they can do whatever they want with it.
| However, you can use Ublock Origin's "block element" feature
| (right mouse button over the element you want to block opens
| the contextual menu) to block all those annoying modals. It
| works on some other sites too, while others will not merely
| cover their content with modals but serve an incomplete
| article.
| googlryas wrote:
| The ones that deny you aren't in the EUs jurisdiction. So the
| EU can have fun writing a law for that.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| FWIW, I just wrote a privacy policy and terms of service for my
| app. I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand GDPR. I could
| probably understand it if I took the time to do some research.
| But, at this point, I don't have a single user and I don't
| think going after the EU as an early adopter (and the time
| spent to make sure I'm actually compliant with their laws) is a
| better use of my time than targeting people in a jurisdiction I
| understand and can be reasonably sure I'm following the laws
| of.
|
| So, instead of figuring out all of the laws of all the
| countries, my ToS require you to attest that you're in the
| United States and using the service under U.S. law. If you try
| to access my product from the EU, you're in breach of our
| contract. If you believe I'm mishandling your data under
| another countries law, send me your account and I'll gladly
| disable it.
|
| I suspect this is going to become increasingly common as
| companies try to regulate digital imports/exports. I'm not
| interested in assuming legal liability for sending bits across
| a border.
| martin8412 wrote:
| Your contract is irrelevant. If you process data of EU
| subjects, then you're bound by the rules of GDPR regardless
| of what your contract contains. You can't sign away your
| rights in the EU, so I can lie and say that I'm in the US,
| and that's entirely your problem.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > If you process data of EU subjects
|
| Will be interesting so see how this shakes out in the
| courts over the next few decades.
|
| It's not possible to know the legal jurisdiction of the
| user represented by an incoming packet with today's
| internet.
|
| To me this sounds like a random person in a random country
| smuggling their data across a boarder into my system
| without my consent. Have a hard time reconciling my views
| on privacy and individual freedom with a world where a
| random country can hold me liable for some random law in
| their jurisdiction when I never consented to doing business
| with their citizens.
| slim wrote:
| he's a under eu juridiction if he says so (say when he
| asks you to delete his data). this has the added feature
| that gdpr protects all netizens :) yay
| pb7 wrote:
| Is it his problem? He doesn't have to respect GDPR because
| he doesn't operate in the EU. Sounds like it's your problem
| if he doesn't handle your data the way you think he does.
| lfodofod wrote:
| European authorities are still able to enforce fines
| against him unless he's exceedingly careful, even if he
| doesn't have direct presence in the EU.
|
| This is why many websites just block European IP
| addresses entirely.
|
| You might think you're safe in the US, but perhaps you
| use a payment processor with significant European
| presence? Stripe or Paypal, for example. European
| authorities can take your money.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > This is why many websites just block European IP
| addresses entirely.
|
| This is not sufficient. IP addresses do not have
| sovereign rights and only loosely correlate with the
| legal jurisdiction of the user behind the originating
| packet.
|
| This is a world where, by connecting to the internet and
| exchanging packets, you are simultaneously liable for
| every law under every jurisdiction; it's just a game of
| roulette which jurisdiction the packet you receive is
| coming from.
|
| This doesn't seem scalable, sustainable, or particularly
| good for human/civil rights.
| pb7 wrote:
| No, they can't. People in sovereign countries aren't
| beholden to your country's laws. The EU can block access
| to the site from inside but nothing more. It doesn't rule
| the world.
| lfodofod wrote:
| Of course they can.
| martin8412 wrote:
| They can just fine you. If you don't pay up, you're
| persona non grata in the EU.
| johngladtj wrote:
| At this point that should be considered a badge of honor
| [deleted]
| corobo wrote:
| Following GDPR is effectively equivalent to respecting your
| users' privacy. What are you doing that the GDPR doesn't
| allow?
|
| You do you of course but at this point GDPR has been round
| long enough I'm assuming you're looking to double dip and
| sell my details. Best case scenario you don't trust your own
| security.
|
| GDPR is only really scary if you're doing questionable things
| with your user data.
|
| If you're just annoyed at it because it's another thing you
| need to learn (you have you learn stuff to do a business??)
| alright fair, no worries. Look into it later tho.
|
| If it's in your way? You're posting your receipts to HN for
| folks to reference later in jokes haha. Your very own "They
| trust me. Dumb fucks"
|
| E: Case in point one of your Show HNs handily referenced "End
| Mass Surveillance Our government is actively breaking its own
| laws. [..]"
|
| Why would anyone believe in your campaign when you don't even
| want to end mass surveillance in your own projects? :)
| tzs wrote:
| Maybe he wants to avoid the cost of a paying a service to
| act as his representative in the Union as required by
| Article 27 if GDPR applies to his business under Article
| 3(2).
|
| Whether Article 3(2) applies is somewhat subjective and a
| big part of it is intent. Blocking EU IP addresses and/or
| requiring people to say they are not in the EU before
| allowing them to use your site would help prove that you
| did not intend to serve people in the EU.
|
| Or maybe he's worried about IP addresses. Regulators in
| Europe has said they are personal data that is covered by
| GDPR. If you have to give IP addresses the full GDPR
| treatment that could be a major hassle for a small
| organization.
|
| So again if you aren't definitely intending to serve EU
| visitors blocking them can bolster the case that you don't
| fall under Article 3(2).
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > Following GDPR is effectively equivalent to respecting
| your users' privacy. What are you doing that the GDPR
| doesn't allow?
|
| Might be. Might not. No way for me to know without
| understanding the GDPR. And I'm not interested in studying
| that law at this point.
|
| My privacy policy is transparent, lists the vendors I do
| business with and how they are involved with handling data,
| and what I use data for.
|
| > GDPR is only really scary if you're doing questionable
| things with your user data.
|
| Any regulation that contains any sort of legal liability
| that I don't understand is scary. If I'm compliant, it's by
| luck. I'm certainly not compliant deliberately because I
| don't understand the GDPR. Am I willing to gamble on luck
| so EU citizens can access my service?
|
| Nope.
|
| I'd go as far as saying "just be a good person and assume
| you aren't going to be held liable in the EU" is a bad take
| and you shouldn't promote people taking such a lax approach
| to legal compliance.
| corobo wrote:
| Sorry for disengaging here but I got nothing lmao. From
| my POV that's like deciding to not follow copyright law
| anymore.
|
| Uh.. cool. Lol.
|
| If you're legit doing the rest as you say then
| congratulations you're already GDPR compliant, you're
| just being stubborn. Seems a waste of brain cycles.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > If you're legit doing the rest as you say then
| congratulations you're already GDPR compliant, you're
| just being stubborn. Seems a waste of brain cycles.
|
| How many jurisdictions exchange packets on the internet
| with your country of residence?
|
| How confident are you that your web service is compliant
| with all of them simultaneously? Are you compliant with
| Saudi Arabia's laws? India? Pakistan? Russia? China?
| Argentina? Nicaragua? Cuba?
|
| I'm suggesting that conducting business in a jurisdiction
| without first ensuring you're compliant with the laws of
| that jurisdiction is a bad way to conduct business.
| Making sure I'm compliant with EU law is a waste of brain
| cells right now. Making sure I'm compliant with U.S. law
| is taxing enough.
|
| I'm also suggesting that you probably shouldn't be liable
| for a random country's law just because one of their
| citizens misrepresented themselves and tricked you into
| exchanging packets under a different set of laws than you
| know how to operate in.
| peyton wrote:
| > What are you doing that the GDPR doesn't allow?
|
| Probably hasn't appointed a representative in the EU. There
| are a lot of other bureaucratic requirements. It's really
| not the same thing as respecting privacy.
| sokoloff wrote:
| On what basis would it be illegal? Does that site have an
| obligation to serve you? Are they not serving you because of
| your membership in a protected class in their jurisdiction?
| type_Ben_struct wrote:
| Should be illegal != is illegal.
|
| It would be illegal if it was against the law. If the
| government in a jurisdiction the site operates in decided to
| make that the case then it would be illegal.
| sokoloff wrote:
| "has to be" ~= "is" != "should be"
| hulitu wrote:
| It seems (from the comments) to be a "feature" of Apple devices.
|
| In some countries calling emergency "for fun" can have legal
| consequences.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I remember the day my wife and I were driving on the interstate
| and I tossed her iphone in the center console of the car.
| Suddenly I get a text saying that she has been involved in an
| emergency and the authorities have been called. The phone starts
| dialing and I hit the end call button, unfortunately this is 911
| ending the call doesn't do any good. We get a call back a moment
| later asking if we're ok. Then minutes later from all of our
| family contacts asking what happened.
|
| I'm 99% sure she disabled that feature after that.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| How hard did you toss the phone exactly? :D
| homero wrote:
| It should know better by seeing that the car is still traveling
| photoGrant wrote:
| You can fall in a vehicle that's still travelling. It just
| has to be able to occupy the fall, so to speak
| LarryMullins wrote:
| I don't think it's meant to call 911 whenever somebody
| trips, on a bus or otherwise. It's supposed to detect car
| crashes, not somebody stumbling on a bus.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The main reason I am getting my elderly mother one is for
| fall detection. It is not just meant for cad accidents.
| jrockway wrote:
| Maybe I was indoctrinated by early 90s TV ads, but don't
| you want that "I've fallen and I can't get up!" thing?
| Seems more reliable.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Sometimes people can't push a button to save themselves;
| and, a lot of elderly people, or even older-but-not-
| elderly people don't want to show themselves either to
| others or themselves that they need protection like this.
|
| My mom had fall protection on her Apple Watch, for
| example, because she lived alone and was getting weaker.
| dasil003 wrote:
| The heuristics would need to be dramatically different
| for those use cases though
| IshKebab wrote:
| Right but it can detect a fall followed by no motion at
| all (not the case in a moving car) followed by a warning
| alarm (Android supports this) and _then_ call 999.
| tantalor wrote:
| > all of our family contacts
|
| What, does it ping your contacts automatically?
| mtgentry wrote:
| Seems like an edge case that Apple can solve by comparing phone
| behavior on a ski lift vs that of a car. There's gotta be some
| patterns in the data that are distinctly skier behavior. However
| if they want to help those skiers that are truly in need of help,
| it gets much trickier.
| [deleted]
| zugi wrote:
| Exactly, this was first reported months ago and it should be
| easy to fix. Check location for ski slopes, see if they're
| moving normally again after 20-30 seconds, etc.
|
| Maybe Apple is delaying the fix because these news stories are
| viral marketing for its crash detection feature?
| thunfischtoast wrote:
| I guess that in the emergency case the phone will automatically
| determine the GPS position. For the fire departments it might
| make sense to discard the automated calls if the position is on
| a serviced skiing slope during the slopes operation times since
| there, in case of an anncident, in 99% of cases others are
| there for helping immediately. Also the emergency service would
| call the slopes emergency helpers anyway since they have the
| skidos ready for rescue on the slopes.
| bluescrn wrote:
| It's probably not just the lifts. Anybody new to
| skis/snowboards is likely to do a lot of falling over.
|
| (But if you're expecting to be frequently falling onto wet snow
| or hard ice, it's probably a good idea not to have a $1000
| smartphone in your pocket...)
| ghaff wrote:
| Although the Apple Watch has the same feature.
|
| Learning to ski is certainly a particularly strong example of
| a case where you're likely to have a lot of false positives.
|
| But, honestly, even with something like hiking, tripping over
| a tree root or something like that isn't exactly rare. I've
| taken a ton of spills over the years and fortunately nothing
| worse than some minor bloodshed or maybe a twisted something
| was involved. (And the one time it was something more serious
| I didn't actually fall but did have a serious bone break.)
|
| I've been on the fence whether I ought to enable the feature
| on my watch.
| meltyness wrote:
| This isn't a disaster if you've got your AirPods in, you just
| explain everything is OK. Just put on your Rosegold Apple AR,
| you'll see.
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