Court of Justice of the EU rules that SIM-less calls to 112 should be located

The Court of Justice of the EU has released this morning an important judgement on interpretation of EU legislation regarding calls to 112.

In its judgement, the Court estimated that calls made from phones without SIM-cards to 112 also fall under the scope of the requirements set out in article 26 of the Universal Service Directive. This legislation requires “all calls to the single European emergency call number “112”” to be located. This means that when Member States of the European Union allow emergency calls to be placed from SIM-less phones, location information must also be provided to the emergency services. Failing that, they will be deemed as not compliant with the currently applicable European legislation (Universal Service Directive).

Currently, emergency calls from SIM-less phones can be placed in 20 EU countries, and this judgement does not impose the remaining Member States to do so.

The publication of this judgment comes after an incident that took place in 2013 in Lithuania, when a young girl called emergency services ten times after being abducted. Neither her location, nor her phone number could be determined, and the girl eventually died.