Technical and Regulatory Issues of Emergency Call Handling

The paper presents selected technical and regulatory aspects of emergency call handling in communication between citizens and authorities in case of distress. Among the most important technical aspects of emergency call handling are recognition and treatment of emergency call by originating network, routing of such call to the appropriate public safety answering point (PSAP), delivering call-related information to the PSAP as well as architecture and organization of PSAPs. From the legal point of view, of importance are the obligations for the Member States and stakeholders involved in the E112 project included in the EU directives, actions of European Commission related to providing access to the location information as well as obligations concerning emergency call handling included in Polish national law.