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The priority for any emergency plan is to protect people, but when a workplace or campus contains thousands, or even tens of thousands of individuals, spread across expansive complex areas and multi-storey buildings; effectively locating, communicating, and coordinating assistance is both fundamental and challenging. If a first responder arrives at a campus armed only with the main street address it’s unlikely they’ll find an emergency caller quickly if they’re located in a 6th floor meeting room.

Also, should an organization suffer from a larger-scale shelter in place, lockdown or evacuation situation, Responders then need to locate, in real-time, many citizens simultaneously, spread across large spaces. These events consist of people who are disoriented and panicked, or even worse unable to speak or injured. If they can’t provide you with an exact location, coordinating help can turn to chaos or be severely delayed.

During workplace emergency events like these, seconds make the difference between extra paperwork and risk to life and limb. Employees could be in imminent danger; there could be disruption to operations, property damage and environmental threats.

Emergency preparation is the foundation to ANY health and safety program, and is a legal requirement in many countries today.

The RAY BAUM’s Act in the US, Section 506, refers to the Federal Communication Commission rules requiring enterprises using multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) to provide an automated dispatchable location for all 9-1-1 calls. Dispatchable location data provided to the PSAP (public safety answering point) includes a valid civic address, plus additional information such as building, floor, suite, or room number. Any information that is deemed as “necessary” to adequately identify the location of the calling party.” Dispatchable location information is required for both fixed, static, and non-fixed, dynamic, phones/devices.

In the EU, the ECC (Electronic Communications Committee) published a report in 2019 outlining the concern around certain aspects of emergency calls originating from private/corporate networks. They reference Article 109 of the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) stating that private/corporate networks should:

“Promote the access to emergency services through the single European emergency number ‘112’ from electronic communication networks” which are not publicly available”. *

The Report concluded there is an issue with caller location information from private/corporate networks and since such networks are typically places of employment, the “safety and wellbeing of employees is paramount”.

Private Networks are secure, private virtual spaces, isolated from the internet. They use private IP addresses and possess extensive, well-maintained indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi ecosystems, which employees and visitors are almost always connected to. They are the perfect habitat to leverage and benefit from a Wi-Fi-based service, but Private Network decision makers need a technology which provides reliable location information quickly, so they may act accordingly.

EML (Emergency Mobile Location) is a location-based service (LBS) which leverages a private network’s unique design and existing Wi-Fi environment, providing essential location data and support. Unlike all other Location Based Services, EML provides outdoor location, and more importantly a dispatchable address, with accurate indoor location, precise floor, and specific room number, without the purchase of additional expensive hardware.

EML provides overwhelming benefits to your organization:

• Individual location data and panic button support
  
• Event management and resilience
  
• Interoperability with current handset/ emergency app
  
• Security Personnel location tracing
  
• Asset management/ tracking
  
• Privacy compliance
  
• Next Generation, Smart City, IoT support
  

Affordable and accurate location data with EML will save your organization valuable time during an emergency response and fully support all your daily operations requiring location sharing.

EML can assist in locating and connecting your employees, and visitors during any emergency event, providing detailed life-saving location data to school administrators, faculty, security personnel and first responders. This level of communication allows for actionable incident assessment, intelligence, and management, with dramatically improved event remediation. EML is the right tool for your Security and Administrative personnel and First Responders.

Source:
*Provision of Caller Location Information from Private/Corporate Networks approved 22 May 2019, EEC