WhatsApp has announced a premiere in Romania by the minister Rovana Plumb, stating that the messaging platform will be included among the applications that will be able to interact with the 112 service. Normally WhatsApp is not able to make calls for the 112 service, which has no support integrated for VoIP calls, but this will change in the future, along with other very important news announced by the Romanian Government.
WhatsApp will be one of the applications for which the 112 service will have compatibility not only in terms of calling to ask for help, but also in terms of transmitting multimedia content. More precisely, users of WhatsApp, or of other messaging platforms, will be able to send pictures, video clips, or make video calls directly from the location from which they are calling to ask for help, something that seems unreal for a country like Romania.
"There will be emergency calls with video transmissions and images from the scene of the event. This is a novelty, because here citizens will have the opportunity to transmit additional information, such as video images, photos, data, SMS text or other mobile phone applications, such as WhatsApp."
WhatsApp is included, along with many other platforms, in a modernization program that the Romanian Government is making for the 112 emergency service, which is in dire need of an upgrade. WhatsApp is the most popular messaging platform on the planet, so offering support for it at 112 is something perfectly normal, especially since in Romania there are extremely many users who use it on a regular basis.
WhatsApp will let you ask for help at 112
WhatsApp is just one of the key points for the improvement of 112, and this is because the substantiation note for the investment in modernization also contains many other prepared changes. More precisely, 112 will have an increased capacity to receive messages, information and emergency calls, including for WhatsApp-type applications, but at the same time the technologies for locating people who call the emergency system will also be improved.
- "the national level modernization of the hardware and software infrastructure of SNUAU, by adopting an efficient architecture aligned with the best practices in the field, for a more efficient management of emergency situations and the assimilation with minor adaptations of the new standards in the field of emergency communications;
- increasing the capacity to receive messages, information and emergency calls generated from heterogeneous environments, as well as the ability of the system to respond to the requests of citizens in emergency situations, through the intelligent distribution of calls at national level, depending on the degree of availability of 112 operators/dispatchers;
- reducing emergency management time both at the level of 112 operators and at the level of the emergency agencies' dispatches, by implementing support functions specific to each area of responsibility;
- the immediate alerting of the entities enrolled in the SNUAU that have responsibilities in managing the intervention in a large-scale situation and creating the premises for alerting at the local/central level and the responsible entities not enrolled in the SNUAU;
- improving the possibilities of retrieving and managing location information associated with emergency calls in order to increase the degree of accuracy and precision of the location of callers in an emergency situation;
- receiving and attaching to the case additional information from callers, such as video transmissions, images, data, text in real time, SMS;
- the implementation of extended cooperation functionalities to ensure efficient management in case of large-scale situations, by offering direct voice communications between any two entities in the system and the integration of radio communications in the emergency call management application;
- the development of centralized management tools, dashboard-type command and control for decision-makers, with essential and relevant data represented by GIS, in order to effectively manage collective emergency situations;
- the implementation of efficient mechanisms for managing resources and intervention crews to propose the most suitable resources to dispatchers, depending on various criteria (competence, distance from the incident, etc.);
- the implementation of internal/external data access mechanisms to ensure SNUAU interoperability with various applications and data sources, by creating centralized, standardized and programmable input-output interfaces. The modernization of SNUAU will generate a substantial increase in quality in the processing of emergency calls, through:
- the intelligent distribution of calls at peak times or in large-scale situations to all operators available at national level, for taking over every emergency from the moment of the first call, thus ensuring a minimum waiting time until it is taken over;
- the reduction by at least 5 seconds of the average emergency processing time at the level of 112 Centers and dispatch centers, through the new facilities offered, mapped on the operation flow of each emergency agency;
- reducing both the current technological risks, by creating a hardware platform independent of the manufacturer, as well as the costs of maintenance and adaptation to technological changes. (..) "."
WhatsApp, like other messaging platforms, needs a special implementation to be able to receive messages, pictures, or video clips, but also to be able to respond to them without leaving the platform. The technical solutions have not yet been presented, because the tender for the modernization has not been opened, but those who will participate will certainly have methods to integrate support for WhatsApp in the 112 service.
WhatsApp is widely used globally, and in some countries it is possible to use the platform to call emergency services, if I'm not mistaken, so offering support in Romania is something perfectly normal. However, considering that we are in Romania, no one can tell you when the miracle could happen, and WhatsApp will be able to be used to interact with the 112 emergency service, but I would not have high hopes that this will happen it will happen soon.
