Tragedy and Responsibility Are Not Mutually Exclusive: VoIP and 911

May 5 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The very unfortunate and tragic death of eighteen-month-old Elijah Luck last week has people talking about the perils of  VoIP phone mobility. The scenario itself isn’t new: registered VoIP subscribers take the assigned product with them in a move of abodes without the physical address associated with emergency calls being changed to the new location. Trying to make sense of the tragedy, the public demands regulators impose some simplified process to ensure a similar scenario is not repeated.

A simple solution, however, befits a simple problem, the responsibility for which can easily be determined. Although many outside observers see the solution to issues of VoIP relocation to be as basic as imposing more regulations on service providers, this overly simplistic approach disregards the role of subscribers and 911 operators in the unfortunate scenario.

Unlike landlines, VoIP products are portable: a subscriber need only unplug a little digital box to take his or her service along to where ever high speed internet is available. Keeping the same phone number, a subscriber can travel the world and receive and make calls from their home phone number. As many VoIP service providers automatically charge subscribers’ credit cards, billing addresses aren’t really as big an issue as with landline subscribers who are invoiced monthly. VoIP subscribers can easily pick up and move without ever having to notify the service provider - and particularly in the case of subscribers who face additional charges for keeping a phone number associated with one region when moving to another, lack of address change notification might sometimes be deliberate. Given the degree of mobility associated with VoIP, subscribers - who are notified when signing up for VoIP in Canada - are partially responsible for what address is connected to a service account. The personal responsibility of VoIP users to keep emergency address information up-to-date cannot be overstated: it is the best preventative measure against disasters such as the unfortunate death of Elijah Luck.

As the way we communicate changes with the introduction of new technologies, we should concurrently reassess our old ways of doing things.  Gone are the days when physical addresses are easily tied to communication devices. We live in an unplugged world of cellular devices and internet telephony. Emergency operators taking 911 calls should now be trained to address this changing situation by quickly confirming that the address on the screen matches with the caller’s current physical location. Yes, this will add yet another layer of complication during a time-sensitive procedure, but it could prove crucial in saving lives in a modern world.

Governments too have a role in answering VoIP relocation issues - and it isn’t as a regulation vending machine. Western governments have for too long encouraged citizens to renege on personal responsibility. It is as if modern governments, not facing any real external threat, have been looking for new things from which to protect their citizenry - increasingly it seems to be a matter of protecting individuals from themselves.  After all, if the government isn’t seen to be doing something for the masses, the people might begin asking pesky questions as to what the purpose of paying into a decrepit system actually is. As a result, governments have sought to take the pressure off the individual: regulating where people can smoke, whether women can have abortions, if a person has the right to die, and in general, taking over the responsibility of individuals to care for themselves. In so doing, we have fostered a culture in Canada of putting the responsibility for our actions (or sometimes inaction) onto someone else. VoIP relocation issues are a prime example - no one wants to admit the nasty truth regarding personal responsibility. If the government should be doing anything, it should be a massive effort to change the current course of society from one in which we shun personal responsibility to one in which we accept the consequences of our actions and mistakes taking preventative measures to avoid more unfortunate outcomes.

All of this is not to say that service providers do not bear some responsibility: it is simply to say that service providers are not alone in being responsible.  In the case of Elijah Luck, I can’t help but wonder why when the Luck family changed their billing address did the service provider not flag the account to make some sort of an inquiry into the corresponding emergency address. Indeed, the Lucks may have assumed that in changing the billing address the 911 address was changed as well. A simple oversight mechanism regarding billing address changes could go a long way in preventing future tragedies. Regular automatic notices from VoIP service providers might also help build awareness and prevent issues - how difficult would it be to have an automated message service send voicemail to subscribers to remind users of the perils of not updating accounts? 

As with most security issues, there are several angles which must be addressed: seldom is a single entity solely responsible for a tragedy. As we become ever-more interconnected through technology and new models of organization, the need to look at problems through systemic analysis will only be greater. Why not start now?

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