Breakdown of emergency numbers in France: a report points out the responsibility of Orange
As of June 2, 2021, 11% of emergency numbers could not be routed normally for more than 7 hours.
AP - Ludovic Marin
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The National Information Systems Security Agency (Anssi) has just published a damning report for the company Orange after the failure of emergency numbers that occurred on June 2 throughout the country.
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"
Insufficient responsiveness
" and "
lack of preparation
". The report commissioned by the government after the
general dysfunction of emergency numbers
last June is devastating for Orange. Some 12,000 calls to the Samu or to the police were unsuccessful, considerably slowing down the interventions. An investigation is still trying to determine the role of this blackout in the deaths of six people.
Anssi and Orange very quickly ruled out the possibility of a cyber attack to explain this dysfunction. The report confirms the track of a
software bug
, put forward by Orange, but criticizes the company for not having understood quickly enough the extent of the failure and for having delayed in reporting the information to the public authorities.
"
Orange took nearly an hour to realize that the blackout affected in particular the emergency services, two hours to inform the authorities and nearly three hours to put in place an appropriate system
, underlines the document sent to the government. this Thursday July 22
.
This is due to several internal dysfunctions at Orange.
The telecommunications company should also have been better prepared for this type of failure, according to the Information Systems Security Authority.
Crisis management
The Secretary of State for Digital, Cédric O, referred to “
shortcomings on the part of the company
” and announced that the government would strengthen Orange's performance obligations on the management of emergency numbers.
A new crisis management system will also have to be put in place by the company.
On June 2, between 4:45 p.m. and midnight, 11% of emergency calls could not be made, a bug that could be linked to
six deaths that occurred during this period
.
Numbers 15, 17, 18 and 112 were difficult to reach for many French people, or only after multiple attempts.
and this on the whole of the territory.
The report nevertheless specifies that the emergency services had widely disseminated ten-digit numbers on social networks, which had "
made it possible to considerably limit the consequences of this crisis in terms of loss of chance or failure to intervene
" .
Several avenues are favored by the government to prevent this type of event from happening again, starting with the setting up of an alert escalation system and technical supervision specific to emergency numbers among operators.
The regulatory framework should be amended in this direction by the end of 2021, in order to strengthen the performance obligations regarding emergency calls.
(
With
AFP)
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