Minister Gilad Erdan’s bill to automatically schedule emergency calls to the 100 police operator was finally approved by the Knesset.

The law will allow the Israel Police Emergency Hotline to automatically receive the caller’s location data from a mobile phone to the emergency center, without wasting valuable time trying to locate the caller who needs help. In addition, the law will enable the other major emergency bodies to receive caller location information immediately, Magen David Adom and the Israel Fire & Rescue Service.

According to security sources, receiving the caller’s location data will help to save lives and prevent physical and property damage, and will shorten the arrival time of emergency, medical and rescue bodies.

Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan said after the bill was passed that “the law is necessary to save lives, and the response time of the police is a matter of life and death.”

According to him, “locating the emergency calls to the 100 emergency dispatcher will enable a quick and immediate response by the police without wasting time, thereby saving the lives of many civilians in the future.”

The law also states that the location data will be stored in a separate dedicated database. Information not viewed by police will be deleted after 14 days. Information that is not viewed by the MDA or the Fire Service will be deleted after 3 hours.

However, the bill did not restrict the possibility of the entities receiving the information from using the information expected to be processed and cross-checked with other information.

There was a heated debate ahead of the preparation of the law for the second and third readings regarding the addition of MDA only as a medical emergency service. MK (Bayit Yehudi) Nissan Slomiansky asked why MDA was included but not United Hatzalah. “Did you check that MDA is capable of acting separately as an ambulance and as a national emergency dispatcher? I have heard complaints about discrimination and denial of information,” he stated.

After receiving the response of the Ministry of Health that MDA is the national emergency medical service according to the law, and it operates nationwide, he turned to MK Maklev: “According to what you say, the entire discussion of the law is unnecessary, as you wish to include all Hatzalah and rescue organizations to receive the information.”

All the discussion we held was to protect one’s privacy and that information did not fall in the hands of an organization that is not entitled in the framework of the law. “How are all the compliments showered on United Hatzalah connected to the law? It is impossible to include all of the organizations under the law. One option is not to pass the law. A second option is not to include MDA. A third option is to include MDA and establish a law committee that will sit with representatives of the Justice and Health Ministries and the two bodies and will try to formulate agreements.”

In his words, “The law cannot be a springboard for someone. The law was approved including MDA and I will request a revision to also include United Hatzalah.”

Maklev questioned how many organizations can meet the criteria set forth by police to be included in the law. He stressed “at the end of the day, this is not a certificate of honor but there is a tachlis to the law, to save lives. If this is the tachlis of the law, there are other organizations dealing with life-saving, and for them, knowledge of a location is imperative”.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)