Belgium has adopted an “official” app so that anyone can signal for help, so long as they belong to this exclusive group:

• Must be a trusting patron of #Google or #Apple. Consequently,

  • must needlessly buy a GSM subscription and surrender to surveillance advertisers who require¹ your mobile phone number (which in Belgium must be registered to an ID) — even though the app can make emergency contact without phone service… thus imposing a needless cost on users and also causing a #GDPR minimisation breach.

• Must install and execute proprietary closed-source software. Consequently,

  • must trust closed-source software (by #Nextel or #Telenet?)
  • must be ethically aligned/okay with running #nonfreesoftware (which does not respect your freedom)
  • must maintain recent hardware, buying a new phone every few years to keep up with the version requirement imposed by the closed-source app, thus:
    • incurs needless hardware cost
    • produces needless e-waste

• Must be willing to leave Tor to access the access-restricted 112.be website.

① see attached image of Google demanding SMS verification for a new account. (untested: whether a mobile number is demanded when registering outside of Tor; please reply if you know the answer to that; #askFedi)