Ontario residents may begin receiving text messages with additional information from police after reporting certain non-emergency events.
The Ontario Provincial Police has launched a new fully automated text service to send messages to a caller’s SMS-enabled device after they have initiated certain types of calls through 911 or the non-emergency line.
Authorities said only a limited list of event types are eligible for messages, the majority of which are events that were reported after the fact and circumstances where no suspects are present.
After contacting the OPP with an eligible incident, the caller will receive a text message with an event number. The caller will also be provided additional information related to the specific call type, such as the location of a collision reporting centre in the event of a crash.
Once the call is cleared by the responding officer, if required, the caller will receive another message with an invitation to a brief voluntary survey to provide feedback on their experience with the OPP.
Messages will be available in both English and French, and recipients can easily opt out of receiving any additional texts from the system.
Further information about the OPP’s new text messaging tool can be found online at opp.ca.
