Ideas & Opinions
In Case of Emergency
By JBC on 14 April 2009
GLOBAL – I’ve never heard of the ICE initiative before, until flicking through the contacts on my mother-in-law’s phone the other day, I came across a contact dubbed ICE. She explained about how she read an article last year, outlining the idea behind ICE (In Case of Emergency) and decided she’d set herself up (her’s is her son’s number, who lives nearby). The idea, if you haven’t heard of it before, is simple. Add a contact to your mobile’s phone book, call it ICE and have the numbers for your next of kin or person you’d like to be contact In Case of Emergency. Easy.
Looking a bit deeper, the whole thing kicked off in 2005 when a paramedic from East Anglia in the UK suggested it. Bob Brotchie’s idea was founded on the fact most people now carry a mobile phone with them, and if there was a uniform approach to emergency contacts, then it’d be easier for emergency services to do the right thing. Makes a lot of sense.
Unfortunately, not much seems to have happened since 2005, at least that I can find. I thought it an interesting point to raise both because it makes sense to me, but also to reach out to Conversations readers to see who has heard of it, who has done it and see if there’s anything we could, and should do to make it more widely known.
DarlaMack picked it up when it first came out, S60 Blogs have since written about it, though back in 2007 and finally IntoMobile picked up on the topic last year. So, here we are at Conversations, somewhat late to the ICE party but now seems as good a time as any to reiterate the ICE contact initiative. Meanwhile, tell us what you think below.
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Tags | ICE, Ovi Contacts and Calendar
April 14th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I knew I was not the only one! Seems I do have good ideas after all.
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April 14th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Well, as for the “ICE” thing, i don’t use it for obvious reasons: I’m Portuguese
, but i’ve heard about it here in Portugal (known as the “EEC”=”Em caso de Emergência Contactar”/”In case of Emergency Contact”) on the TV, and i find it an awesome idea.
A couple of years ago, my father had an accident on the road, about 17pm, and at that time, i/we didn’t heard about the “EEC” thing.. Conclusion: My father’s accident was announced to us only at 22pm. (by the way, he’s ok…)
I think this proves that being “EEC” or “ICE”, it is indeed a simple and funcional idea, and i totally suport it.
Btw, nice from you to (re)start the “EEC”/”ICE” wave!
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April 15th, 2009 at 4:36 am
EXCELLENT reminder on ICE!
I’ve totally forgotten about this! Thank you for reminding me. Tomorrow I’ll update my daughters phone, mine & my wife’s phone.
Unfortunately something comes to a problem here that NEEDS to be fixed as an initiative by mobile manufacturers; and possibly law makers. I’ll blog about my adjustment of this idea tomorrow; take a read and I’ll submitt here again.
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April 15th, 2009 at 5:36 am
EXCELLENT reminder on ICE!
Just finished posting on my blog.
http://seriousmobile.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/ice-in-case-of-emergency-vital-communication/
Not spam, really the truth. Thank you James for this reminder; coming from a loving, if not overbearing tough father.
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April 15th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
The ICE concept is great, however, it is REALLY ANNOYING that when I save my brother’s number as “ICE”, and when he then calls me, my Nokia Phone is UNABLE to show the name of the caller at all, because the same number is saved as “ICE” and “Thomas”.
How ridiculous is that!
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Nuno Pereira Reply:
April 15th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
@annoyed, it’s not ridiculous… It’s normal that if you give the same number two diferent names, your phone doesn’t know what name to present…
But there’s a solution… Try to save your brother’s name as ICE-Thomas.. it’s functional, and easy.
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James BC Reply:
April 15th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
@Nuno Pereira, and @annoyed – Thanks to both of you. Firstly annoyed for highlighting a problem I couldn’t work out since adding my own ICE number the other day. Thanks Nuno for highlighting a neat solution.
Is it maybe that we need to have a “special” contact pre-installed to cater for ICE?
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Nuno Pereira Reply:
April 16th, 2009 at 1:02 am
@James BC, i think that if we had that option on future Nokias, it would be great, but i don’t think that it is vital.
And another issue would be raised along with that option:
We would need atleast 3 ICE contacts… And then there would be someone that would say “Why only 3 contacts? Why can’t we insert 4 or 5?”..
Like i said, i’m fine with the ICE-”name” solution, but if Nokia considers this option on future devices/firmware updates, i will apreciate!
annoyed Reply:
April 19th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
@Nuno Pereira,
I am aware that this ‘feature’ has been in Nokia phones as long as I can remember. However, I would be happy if the phone could show just either of the names, “ICE-Thomas” or “Thomas McKinsley”, since I have saved all the names with both first and last name.
Then, I could instantly see who is calling, as well as call/text this person nyt by finding ICE-Thomas on the contact list but by using his full name.
..just my two cents
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April 20th, 2009 at 9:56 am
what steps are mobile manufactures taking to tackle mobile spyware ,which is commonly used to listen calls silently,without user knowledge,and this softwares are easily availble
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