LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) Douglas County is the first county in Kansas to use a national safety database to find someone who places a 911 call from a cellphone.
The county said Wednesday it hopes the system, called Smart911, will reduce the time emergency dispatchers use to find people who use cellphones to report an emergency. Unlike landlines, which show the address of the caller, cellphone calls display only the number and wireless carrier.
With Smart911, residents voluntarily submit information, including cellphone numbers, to the national database. Dispatchers can access that database only after a 911 call, and the information isn’t available to police for other uses.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports about 76 percent of 911 calls to Douglas County dispatchers last year came from mobile phones.
