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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

The longer term solution is not not use Microsoft Teams at all. I made this decision a while ago, previously I tried to accommodate customers that required 'Teams' for meetings but I figured it isn't worth the hassle. I lost one customer over this, good riddance, I'm sure they'll come to their senses some day.

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Teams isn’t the issue here. It’s an Android design issue. No app can highjack 911 on iPhone.

There is a reason this materialized with teams and not with any one of the 10's of thousands of other apps out there: Teams is by far the most invasive piece of shit there is, it tries to hook into everything it can get its grubby little endpoints into.

Both parties are to blame. Teams shouldn't have behaved the way it did, Android should have failsafes to prevent this from happening. A great example of not letting developers do what they want...

A great example of how people will use anything to justify giving away freedom.

Kinda but also no? Teams "managing" emergency calling is a feature: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/what-are-eme...

Sure, Android should absolutely not allow any apps to interfere with 911 calls, and so however Teams achieves this, should not be possible. But some blame certainly goes to Teams here as well for causing the situation by trying.

One thing I do want to point out is that "not allowing any apps to interfere with 911 calls" is much more complex than it sounds:

1. What about someone who has a tablet (with no cellular functionality) but has a VoIP app installed?

Clearly, the only way to call 911 on such a device would be for it to go through the VoIP app, so it seems like Android at the very least still needs VoIP apps to be able to handle 911 calls under certain circumstances, such as when there is no cellular functionality.

2. How about a situation where a cellular phone has no communication with any cell towers (for any network) but has a VoIP app installed and access to wifi?

Unlikely, to be sure, but possible. In this case, the only way for the phone to reach 911 would, again, be through the VoIP app. If 911 access must get through no matter what, Android would have to let the call go through the app, despite that the phone has cellular functionality.

Those are likely just a couple of instances and there's almost certainly others I haven't thought of.

A solution could be to give the Android system dialer first preference. If it fails to call the number (network issues, no signal) it could automatically pass off the call to the first registered VoIP app

That said, the Google Play store should also have more stringent reviews for apps that want dialer access. Their review should verify whether emergency services can be called regardless of signed-in status, and location

I would be happy to get that somewhere in Google someone is either signing off on such a review requirement right now or has done so in the last couple of days.

I suspect that this little tidbit here is the root cause:

"If a Teams client is not located at a tenant-defined dynamic emergency location, emergency calls from that client are screened by a national call center to determine the location of the caller before transferring the call to the PSAP serving that geographic location."

Also, "If a Teams client for a United States Calling Plan user doesn't dynamically acquire an emergency address within the United States, then the registered emergency address is used to help screen and route the call. However, the call will be screened to determine if an updated address is required before connecting the caller to the appropriate PSAP."

Which is a clear violation of Kari's Law. A business phone system in the US is absolutely not allowed to intercept and divert 911 calls.

Maybe you other reasons to drop Teams, but this would not be one.

Google/Android are clearly tasked with handling 911/emergency calls. Teams is not - I doubt that it is even in their spec - they should expect 911 to route right past them.

Google effed up this one big time.

They need to fix it for every app, not just Teams.

And for every phone they released that can still reach 911 services. You don't need a sim to call 911.

You really should have a close look at what Teams does before making comments like this.

It literally does not matter what Teams does - even if Teams maliciously did every wrong thing they possibly can, it's the duty of the phone manufacturer to ensure that 911 still works, it's Google's duty to ensure that Teams or any other app can't break emergency calls no matter how they try; the law literally requires the phone to recognize that a 911 is being made and override any programming (e.g. Teams) that may interfere with that. If Google can't do that with an over-the-air update, they can issue a full recall for all the affected Pixel phones.

Sure, but not at all in this case.

My understanding is that emergency calls for any global locale are supposed to be an entirely separate band of communication from regular phone calls — e.g., they must work even without a SIM card, an account, etc.

So, emergency calls should be ENTIRELY OUT OF SCOPE FOR ANY APP software. Period.

It should be a low-level override/bypass, and NO app software software should ever be allowed to even touch emergency calls, let alone required to handle them.

Expecting all apps to handle life-critical emergency calls correctly is a profoundly stupid idea, guaranteed to produce a multiplicity of failures (and if that expectation did exist, Google must damn well announce it as a deadly serious requirement in bold, uppercase, red flashing letters to anyone wanting to use phone_call_handling permissions, but they don't, afaik).

So, we don't need to know anything about Teams or other app software in this case, only about the emergency calls side/back channel, and that any app, including Teams, will ZERO responsibility for handling emergency calls, or even ability to touch them.

So, it is Google that effed up big time here (regardless of Teams' other issues). Unless you make a solid case for the profoundly stupid idea that all phone-related app software should be responsible for handling life-critical emergency calls, your statement is plainly wrong.

> Mobile telephones manufactured after February 13, 2000... must incorporate a special procedure for processing 911 calls. Such procedure must recognize when a 911 call is made and, at such time, must override any programming in the mobile unit that determines the handling of a non-911 call.

It doesn't matter what Teams does. Android is required to ignore Teams in the case of an emergency call. That's the law.

Sometimes you just don't have that choice.

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