Google Messages and RCS to Soon Let You Text 911

In emergency situations, making a call to 911 might not always be possible. What if you had an alternative way to contact 911, like through a messaging app? Hey, that’s happening later this year, during the winter, through Google Messages.

In a brief announcement today, Google said that it is partnering with RapidSOS to allow users in areas with text-to-911 capabilities to send RCS messages to 911. This will be a gradual rollout, but that rollout will bring another method of safety communication to your phone.

With RCS messaging to 911 services, you get some pretty important benefits, since RCS is an advanced messaging solution that can offer more than just SMS (because yes, you can already SMS to 911 in some areas). Those benefits are:

• Delivery confirmation and reply indicators: When you use RCS to send a message to 911, you’ll get confirmation of message delivery and can also see if someone is actively replying to your message.
• Precise location sharing: Through RCS, you can also precisely share your location and other info, which could make finding you in an emergency an easier task.
• High-res photo media sharing: Depending on your situation, you may want to send photos or videos in a quality that truly represents what’s happening. Again, RCS can do this while SMS would typically share a lower-resolution of media.

Google says it is working with other partners in the industry to expand RCS-to-911 because their goal is to make it hte standard for messaging emergency services.

Again, this is scheduled to rollout this winter.

// Google