Disability affects a high proportion of the population, but many countries still do not provide accessible emergency services. Limited communications options can leave persons with disabilities in particularly dangerous situations in times of emergency.
It is essential that countries ensure their emergency communications are accessible to all citizens.
Why are accessible communications important?
Disability affects 15-20% of every country’s population: there are at least 650 million persons with disabilities worldwide, and 100 million persons with disabilities in the European Union alone. 9% of Europe’s population is deaf or hard of hearing.
It is therefore both surprising and concerning that many emergency services can still only be reached via voice call.
What are the obstacles when implementing an accessible 112 service?
Even today, most emergency services are only capable of receiving voice communications, while only a marginal share of data and multimedia is used by European Public Safety Answering Points. Inherently, improving access to 112 for deaf and hard of hearing citizens requires enabling PSAPs to handle other modes of communications such as text and communications in a sign language and thus implementing access to 112 through text and video. It also involves adapting their operations policy (e.g. training call takers to use text messages in conversations) or employing sign language interpreters to handle video calls through a sign language. These systems can be costly to implement and require both the PSAP and the user to have fully functioning and compatible software.
What are the legal obligations for eu countries?
According to the European Electronic Communications Code and the European Accessibility Act, people with disabilities should be able to contact emergency services in an equivalent manner compared to other end-users. EU Delegated Regulation 2023/444 lists 6 functional equivalence criteria which must be met to ensure the principle of equivalent access:
- The communication mean should enable two-way interactive communication between the end-user with disabilities and the PSAP
- The emergency communication is available in a seamless way, without pre-registration to end-users with disabilities travelling in another Member State.
- The communication is provided to the end-users free of charge
- The emergency communication is routed without delay to the most appropriate PSAP that is qualified and equipped to appropriately answer and process the emergency communication from end-users with disabilities.
- Equivalent levels of accuracy and reliability of caller location information are ensured for the people with disabilities compared to the other end-users.
- Member States should reach similar levels of awareness about the means of communications for people with disabilities compared to the emergency communications for other end-users.
The European Accessibility Act also requires:
- at a minimum, real-time text (RTT) should be implemented (annex I, section IV, Directive2019/882/EC).
PSAPs should respond with the same communication method as that received (for example, text should be responded by text, video should be responded by video. (annex I, section V, Directive 2019/882/EC
Implementation of RTT
Member States are obliged to implement Real Time Text and where appropriate, Total Conversation by 28 June 2027 at the latest.In 2025, Ireland became the first country in the EU to offer native RTT. Two Member States, (Malta and the Netherlands) currently have an app based RTT capability, while the majority of Member States intend to be capable of receiving RTT natively by 2027.On 18 December 2024, the European Commission published its report on the effectiveness of the implementation of the single European emergency number 112. This report outlined the following timelines for Member State implementation of Native RTT:
It is important to note that these roadmaps are indicative, and are subject to delays. For example, in Finland, which initially aimed to be capable of receiving native RTT by Summer 2025, has had to delay this until 2027. In addition, Germany has now indicated that all PSAPs will have RTT by 28 June 2027, with RTT potentially being possible in some PSAPs from 28 June 2025.
What kind of solutions are available?
There are several methods used across Europe to provide accessible emergency communications, all with their own pros and cons.
These include smartphone applications, text, relay services, textphone, total conversation, and more.
How can next generation 112 (NG112) Help improve Accessibility?
The NG112 architecture enables the modernisation of emergency communications, allowing for far more data collection (text, video, location or additional data). Naturally, offering text and video communications alongside traditional calls can help ensure equivalent access for people with disabilities. It is important that as NG112 is implemented, the needs of people with disabilities are a priority for new emergency communications frameworks.
Find out more about NG112 on our special focus page.
What does EENA Advocate for?
EENA believes that:
- Every EU country must implement a standard-based, reliable, effective solution which enables equal access to emergency services for persons with disabilities.
- The number to contact emergency services should be the same for everybody.
- The solution must perform consistently and precisely and must be usable with high confidence, based on 24h/365 days service provision.
- The solution should perform everywhere, including when the user is roaming. To ensure this, the implementation of NG112 is crucial.
- Emergency services must ensure that they establish appropriate procedures for the management of communication with users with disabilities, including adequate training of call-takers and dispatchers.
- The available solutions must be well communicated to the public also in an accessible manner, to ensure that persons with disabilities are aware of how they can contact emergency services. As the pros and cons in the document show, total conversation provides the best equivalent access to emergency services.
- Best practices should be shared so that countries and organisations can learn from each other.
