Instead of 110 and 112 – the silent emergency call on your cell phone can save you in an emergency

One wrong step, an inattentive driver on the road and it happened. Such accidents happen frequently, but most of the time you secretly think: “It won’t happen to me.”

In order to be prepared for emergencies, you should at least know the emergency numbers 110 and 112 and be able to dial them quickly on your cell phone. But smartphones also offer modern options for alerting emergency services.

That is why the federal government has developed an official emergency call app for the federal states. It’s called Nora (download from CHIP.de) and is of course available free of charge. We’ll show you what the app can do.

Official emergency call app: How “nora” works

In order to be able to use the app at all, you must first register your phone number. This is to prevent misuse of the emergency call app Nora. So enter your mobile number and wait for the confirmation code that comes via SMS. After that, all you have to do is enter your name and tap the “Done” button.

You can then use the “Personal information” field to record a wide range of information about yourself, which will help the rescue services in an emergency. These include about

• age and gender
• Pre-existing conditions (allergies, asthma, pacemaker, etc.)
• Disabilities (hearing impairment, visual impairment, etc.)
• Miscellaneous (emergency keys, quarantine, etc.)

According to the manufacturer, this sensitive, personal data is only stored locally on the mobile device and is only transmitted to the operations control center and rescue services in an emergency.

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Attention: False emergency calls can be expensive

However, you should be careful when using the Nora app, because as with a call to the numbers 110 and 112, making an emergency call by mistake is a criminal offense under Section 145 of the German Criminal Code. As soon as you send the finished emergency call with the app, rescue workers are alerted – if the emergency turns out to be fabricated, you also bear the costs of the operation.

Since you should still be familiar with the app so that you don’t have to search long in an emergency, there is an “emergency call demo” function. There you can try everything without accidentally making a real emergency call.

At the beginning there is the location determination, which seems to be quite reliable in practice. The determined address can also be changed manually. In the next step, enter the nature of the emergency, for example

• Police Emergency
• Accident
• Fire
• Medical emergency
• Severe weather / person in distress

Advantage: You can also use the Nora app to send a silent emergency call if you feel threatened or cannot speak. This would also not be possible over the phone. In the last step, you send it off and communicate directly with the operations control center. If you indicated at the beginning that you cannot make a phone call, this will be done via chat.

This is what users say about the app

The federal government’s idea of ​​developing a uniform emergency call app is really commendable. After all, people with disabilities also benefit from this – communication via 110 and 112 is significantly more difficult with a hearing impairment. The same applies if you are suddenly unable to speak as a result of an accident or a stroke.

Overall, the verdict of the users in the app stores is quite positive, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. For example, users would like the design to be a little clearer, the connection to the servers more stable and the address recognition more accurate.