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SWD(2022)0430

This Commission Delegated Regulation supplements Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council with measures to ensure effective access to emergency services through emergency communications to the single European emergency number '112'.

Context

Emergency communications are an important element for the pursuit of public safety, security and health. For more than 30 years, citizens of the Union have relied on access to emergency services using the single European Emergency number ‘112. They should continue to be able to do so in the digital world. In 2019, the share of emergency calls in the Union to the single European emergency number ‘112’ represented 56% of all emergency calls. The high level of connectivity that is targeted by Europe’s digital transformation is bringing about a technological migration to all IP technologies of electronic communication services used by citizens, in particular by persons with disabilities.

The migration from circuit-switched to packet-switched technologies in electronic communication networks triggers the deployment of voice services through IP Multimedia Subsystem based fixed and mobile managed VoIP technologies such as Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE), Voice over New Radio (VoNR in 5G) and Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi). Packet-switched technologies also enable text and video-based services like real time text and total conversation services.

Those IP-based communication services cannot be supported by the legacy circuit-switched networks, such as 2G and 3G networks that are in the process of being decommissioned. Therefore, there is a need to migrate emergency communications to packet-switched technologies as well. This Regulation aims to ensure that in this transformational process the quality and reliability of emergency communications are ensured.

Content

The aim of this Delegated Regulation is to ensure effective access to emergency services through emergency communications to the single European emergency number '112' in the Member States . It establishes measures to ensure effective access to emergency services through emergency communications with regard to caller location information solutions, access for end-users with disabilities and routing to the most appropriate PSAP. These measures will apply in all Member States.

Specifically, the Delegated Regulation:

1) provides for harmonised definitions of effective emergency communications and contextual information , the latter being defined as information transmitted by the end-user or obtained and transmitted automatically from the end-user's device or network;

2) defines the parameters that need to be taken into account by the competent regulatory authorities when setting the criteria for accuracy and reliability of caller location information . For fixed networks, the accuracy criterion should be expressed through the caller location information related to the physical address of the network termination point, such as a street address, apartment, flat, floor or similar information; for mobile networks it should be expressed in metres to indicate the maximum radius of the horizontal search area that is presented to the emergency services for intervention purposes, including if applicable, the elevation or vertical accuracy;

3) establishes functional equivalence requirements for emergency communications to be used by end-users with disabilities for accessing emergency services. To ensure functional equivalence, the Regulation requires as follows: two-way interactive communication, seamless access across the Union, free-of-charge access, appropriate answering and handling, provision of caller location and awareness;

4) establishes that the emergency communication has to be routed to the most appropriate PSAP that is technically capable to convey the contextual information to the emergency services when those services are alerted. To ensure that seamless access across the EU is technically feasible when using an emergency application, the Regulation calls on Member States to cooperate with the Commission to identify common interoperability requirements, which would enable routing of the mobile application-based emergency communications to the most appropriate PSAP when roaming;

5) requires Member States to report and provide updated information to the Commission on the obligations established in this Regulation. To ensure the access to emergency services by emergency communications to the most appropriate PSAP in the context of the technological migration to all-IP networks, the Regulation requires Member States to prepare and send to the Commission a roadmap for upgrading the national PSAP system to be able to receive, answer and process emergency communications through packet switched technology.

The organisation of emergency services as such remains the exclusive competence of Member States and is outside of the scope of this Regulation

Non-legislative basic document

C(2022)09394