The SOS button in your BMW houses the Intelligent emergency call and is to be pressed in an emergency only.
To make sure you do not accidentally press the SOS button, you first need to tap the cover flap.
After opening the cover, press and hold the SOS button until the LED in the button area is illuminated green. When the connection to the emergency number has been established, the LED flashes green.
SOS call triggers automatically in emergency situations
In emergency situations, the system may trigger automatically. If you are not directly involved in an emergency situation but you want to report one, you may also use the SOS button.
After triggering the BMW Intelligent emergency call you reach the BMW Call Centre Agent or the public emergency services.
Vehicle data shared with call center
When an emergency call is sent via BMW, data will be transmitted to the emergency call center in order to decide what rescue measures are required. The data may include, for example, the current position of the vehicle and the amount of airbags that have been deployed and an estimation of the severity.
SOS button only for real emergencies
For Concierge Services, please do not use the eCall button. You can reach the Concierge Services over the ConnectedDrive menu. The emergency call centre is only available to offer help for real emergencies.
I don’t believe eCall will save many lives. But there will certainly be huge data leaks, as well as hacker attacks and security breaches. And it won’t be long before politicians demand access to the movement data, first just to catch criminals, then later to distribute automatic tickets. The only thing that won’t work is to locate the car if it was stolen. It will then be pointed out that for data protection reasons unfortunately no access to the GPS data is possible, even for the owner of the vehicle.
This will plunge the rescue services and fire brigades into chaos! In particular, the ambulance service is already mercilessly overloaded in many cities, as an ambulance is now sent out for every little thing! If emergency is automatically called by every car whose airbag has triggered, then this situation will not exactly improve. Bear in mind that not every accident inevitably leads to injuries despite the airbag being deployed. It should be reconsidered whether this system is really well thought out and should not decide on the basis of the impact speed, whether the rescue service is called automatically.