Petition · past parliament · Department of Health and Social Care, Home Office

Review how emergency services handle location data from the public.

Closed 376 signatures

What the petition asks

Laws already exist on obtaining location data at handsets, and in telcos, but not on how emergency services handle location data provided verbally by the public. This is inconsistent, with some handling ordnance survey grid ref, latitude/longitude, and other formats. Some are not handled at all.
At present a caller cannot be sure they have the tools to reliably pass location data to emergency services as there is no defined minimum standard. There is also some serious concern that they are carrying out marketing activity for private companies, i.e. talking callers through downloading a commercial app, even in an emergency. I suggest handling at least O/S grid references should be a standard (by law), and private commercial apps should not be promoted in the middle of an emergency!

Timeline

5 Aug 2021 Petition opened for signatures
5 Feb 2022 Closed to new signatures

Key facts

Signatures 376
Status Closed
Department Department of Health and Social Care, Home Office
Opened 5 Aug 2021
Closed 5 Feb 2022

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.