Dialing 110 to alert police is the main option for people to seek help in case of emergency. One problem, however, is that many 110 callers aren’t able to give a precise location of their whereabouts, making it very difficult for the police to take timely action. This issue may be resolved by two newly launched smart-phones.

The two new smart-phones can automatically provide police with a location when 110 is called. They were launched by the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department and two companies, Zhuhai Meizu Telecom Equipment Co., Ltd., and Guangdong XTC Technology Co., LTD. When people use these phones to dial 110 within Guangdong Province, a positioning system will be triggered automatically and the exact location will be sent to the police service center of the precinct.

[Photo: Nanfang Daily/Wang Rong]

Police departments in the province are actively making attempts to facilitate alarm positioning. Shenzhen police initiated a pioneering lamppost alarm system in 2005 that covers the city’s main streets, enabling them to target location accurately on e-maps with the reported unified code on the lampposts. Soon after, Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department developed and applied a cellphone alarm positioning system based on the signals from base stations. Earlier this year, a mobile internet alarm platform was launched in the province to report emergencies and their addresses through a “Guangdong 110” mini program.

Nonetheless, online alert systems often remain inconvenient and are inadequately promoted. Therefore, the two smart-phones were launched for the public to dial police in a more traditional way. Position transmission is an optional program that can be used to protect the users’ privacy.