Poland clamps down on hoax calls to emergency services
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
19.11.2017 12:35
New rules designed to clamp down on hoaxers and people making unnecessary calls to emergency services came into force in Poland on Sunday.
Photo: AKuptsova//pixabay.com/CC0 Creative Commons
Anyone who deliberately wastes the time of police, fire or ambulance crews faces arrest, jail time or a fine.
The new rules were proposed by Polish President Andrzej Duda. Deputies voted them through the lower house in September while the upper house of parliament did not introduce any amendments.
Duda signed the rules into law on October 12.
In Poland, 45% of emergency calls were false, malicious or unwarranted in 2015. In 2016, 46.63% were unwarranted, the PAP news agency reported.
In the European Union, more than half of calls to the 112 emergency number are unwarranted, according to PAP.
(pk)
Source: PAP