An emergency contact on the lock screen

Put your name, who to call and your medicines where an ambulance crew can read them without your code.

If you were taken ill in the street, the phone in your coat would be the most useful object there — and the ambulance crew could not open it.

Every phone made in the last ten years has one screen that can be read without the code, put there for exactly this. It holds your name, who should be telephoned, and anything a paramedic ought to know before treating you.

Key points

• Fill in the emergency card that every phone already has
• Turn on the switch that makes it readable without your code
• Know that the card leads nowhere else on the phone
• Find the same screen on somebody else’s phone if you ever need to

What to remember

• The last switch is the one that matters. Without it, the card exists and nobody can get to it.
• The emergency screen is a dead end by design. It gives out one card and opens no doors.
• Emergency, then Medical information. Learn the route so you could tell somebody else where to look.

Try this

Fill yours in tonight, then lock the phone, press Emergency and read it back. Four minutes. Then ask whoever you live with to do theirs, and check each other’s.

Practice: An emergency contact on the lock screen. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.

Related guides

• The card on the lock screen
• Put your key details on the outside of your phone
• Lock the screen so a lost phone stays just a lost phone
• Save a number so you never lose it
• Keeping a record that matters