PowerPhone's Technology Delivers Cell Phone Photos to 9-1-1 Operators

MADISON, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday that the nation’s largest city would be developing a system for accepting cell phone photos from citizens in its 9-1-1 and 3-1-1 call centers. A Connecticut company has already built a system that would do just that for the citizens of New York.

PowerPhone, a leader in 9-1-1 training and technology, unveiled the first system for delivering cell phone photos from 9-1-1 callers right to call handlers in August of 2006 at the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials Annual Conference. The new technology, which is called Incident Linked Multimedia (ILM), is part of PowerPhone’s Total Response^® Computer Aided Call Handling^™ software.

“Technology is changing the rules when it comes to emergency response,” said Chris Salafia, PowerPhone’s president and CEO. “Citizens are now the eyes and ears for our 9-1-1 operators—and camera phone photos are going to be an important part of improving the level of service 9-1-1 systems offer to the public.“

In a recent study conducted by a leading European mobile communications retailer in conjunction with the London School of Economics, over 50% of respondents said they would use their camera phone to record evidence of a crime and 47% said they would take pictures of a crime in progress.

Additional facts about cell phone cameras and emergencies

• The Gartner Group says worldwide sales of camera phones will reach 300 million in 2006.
• According to analyst Tony Henning, managing editor of the Future Image Mobile Imaging Report, "Nine out of 10 digital images taken by consumers [this year] will be captured with camera phones."
• Messaging company Mobile365 says the number of mobile-originated MMS messages it processed in the US increased 40% from the first to the second quarter of this year.
• Verizon Wireless customers sent 7.4 billion text messages during the fourth quarter of 2005.
• New York City police say a 15-year-old girl used her cell phone camera to snap a picture of a man who was exposing himself to her on the number seven train last month, reports the Associated Press.
• CBS2chicago.com reports that a Lemont Township man who tried to lure four teenage girls into his car last month was arrested after the same girls spotted him and took a camera phone shot of his license plate.
• For the first time, Swiss authorities have made an appeal to the public to submit camera phone photos or videos of the riot that followed a recent soccer match between the Basel and Zurich teams in the hope to identify the culprits. (From Nouvel Obs, France)