By Salvatore Baglieri
Publication Date: 2025-12-23 00:00:00
In an emergency, every second counts. And the most important piece of information for first responders is knowing the location where help is needed. But in a moment of crisis, this essential information can sometimes be hard to get – for reasons ranging from an emergency caller’s distress to weak network connectivity.
To help address this issue and bring our users more peace of mind, Google built Emergency Location Service (ELS) in Android. This built-in feature in Android devices instantly delivers enhanced location to emergency services, such as police, medical and firefighting services, when they’re contacted, whether that is over call or SMS. ELS in Android uses data from GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular networks, and can even send additional information like device language, providing location precision often reaching accuracy of within 50 meters.
ELS service activates when it is supported by local wireless or emergency infrastructure providers. In the 60+ countries where the…