Toronto citizens are being asked to lock their keypads, in an effort to minimize the amount of "butt-dials," or bogus calls made to emergency service call centers.
Over 200 false emergency calls are made daily to Toronto emergency service centers, resulting in over 20,000 false alarms yearly. And the costs of these unintended calls add up.
Toronto police spokesperson Judy Broomfield says butt-dialing is an epidemic, tying up operators that could be otherwise taking emergency calls. Determining that takes an average of two to three minutes, costing operators about 625 minutes a day chasing bogus calls that could be spent dealing with actual emergencies.
"We are concerned it may be putting people's lives at risk," said Broomfield. "We have to then determine if it's an emergency or not."
Some industry analysts have suggested making butt-dialing a ticketed offense, hoping the idea being incurring a fine would make phone users more vigilant about locking their devices.
The phenomenon of accidental dialing has had unintended consequences beyond draining or diverting emergency services. A thief in upstate New York unknowingly "butt-dialed" 911 as he and two accomplices drove around plotting their next break-in, but alerting law enforcement to their nefarious activities.
An Illinois man last January accidentally dialed his wife while listening to hip-hop music as he drove home from work, resulting in a 30-man SWAT team being sent after him after his wife mistakenly though he was being kidnapped.
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