Saliem Talash: Set up Medical ID and Emergency SOS on your phone

Most people never touch the emergency settings on their phone. They sit in a corner of the Settings app, half set up, until the one day they matter. And on that day you may not be the one holding the phone.

Both iPhone and Android let you store medical information and emergency contacts that can be reached from the lock screen, and both have a fast way to call for help. Setting them up properly takes about five minutes. I'm Saliem Talash, I build practical tools for small businesses in Toronto, and this is one of the first things I suggest doing on any new phone, including the ones that arrive as gifts in December. The steps below follow Apple's and Google's own support pages as they read in October 2026.

On iPhone: Medical ID

Apple describes Medical ID as information "that may be important in an emergency, like allergies, medical conditions, and your emergency contacts." It lives in the Health app.

Create it:

Open the Health app.
Tap your picture, then tap Medical ID.
Tap Get Started or Edit, and enter your information.
Under Emergency Contacts, tap Add Emergency Contact and add the people you want reached.
Tap Done.

Make it reachable when the phone is locked. This is the step people skip. Go back to Health, tap your picture, tap Medical ID, tap Edit, scroll to the bottom, and turn on Show When Locked and Emergency Call.

Apple says the information can then appear on the Lock Screen of your iPhone and Apple Watch, and can be shared automatically during an emergency call. That automatic sharing is available in the U.S. and Canada only, according to Apple.

How a first responder sees it: from the Lock Screen, they swipe up or press the Home button (depending on the model), tap Emergency on the passcode screen, then tap Medical ID. Try it on your own phone once, so you know it works.

On iPhone: Emergency SOS

Apple's page gives two ways to start an emergency call quickly:

Hold: press and hold the side button and either volume button until the sliders appear and the Emergency SOS countdown ends, then release.
Five presses: turn on Call with 5 Presses in Settings > Emergency SOS, and you can start the call by pressing the side button five times quickly.

By default, Apple says, the iPhone plays a warning sound, starts a countdown, then calls emergency services.

After the call ends, the iPhone texts your emergency contacts unless you cancel, and sends your current location if available. For a period after you enter SOS mode, your contacts get updates when your location changes. That is why the emergency contacts in Medical ID matter: they are the people who get that message.

One important instruction from Apple if you trigger a call by accident: "don't hang up. Wait until a responder answers, then explain that you don't need help." Pocket calls happen; this is the right way to end one.

On Android: emergency information

Google's page explains that on many Android phones these features live in the Personal Safety app, which shows up in your app list as Safety. Google notes that some steps work only on Android 12 and up.

Add your emergency info:

Open the Safety app and sign in to your Google Account.
Tap the items you want to fill in, such as blood type, allergies or medications.
Tap Emergency contacts, then Add contact, and choose the contact.
To show this information when the screen is locked, tap Emergency info access, then Show when locked.

Google adds a privacy note worth reading: "Anyone who picks up your phone can find your lock screen message and emergency information even if your phone is locked." Put in what a responder needs, and nothing you would mind a stranger reading.

On Android: Emergency SOS

Google says Emergency SOS is available on Android 12 and later. To set it up, open Settings, tap Safety & emergency, then Emergency SOS, and follow the setup. Along the way you confirm the local emergency number, choose emergency contacts and what to share with them, and decide whether to allow emergency video recording.

You also choose how it starts:

Touch & hold to start actions, which adds a confirmation step, or
Start actions automatically, after a 5-second countdown.

To use it, Google's instruction is to press the power button 5 times or more, then, depending on your settings, touch and hold the red circle for 3 seconds or wait for the countdown.

Two limits from Google's page to know in advance:

Emergency SOS doesn't work in airplane mode or when Battery Saver is on.
Sharing your real-time location with your contacts needs a Wi-Fi or mobile internet connection.

Android's emergency sharing feature, which sends your location to chosen contacts, ends automatically after 24 hours, according to Google.

A lock screen message for a lost phone

Separately from emergencies, Android lets you put a short message on the lock screen: Settings > Display > Lock screen > Add text on lock screen. Google suggests information that would help someone return your phone. An email address or a second phone number works; a home address does not belong there.

Why now

There is no good moment to discover that your Medical ID is empty. The quiet weeks before the holidays are a sensible time to check these settings, and a new phone is a sensible time to check them again. Check, rather than assume.

The five-minute checklist

Fill in allergies, medications and medical conditions that matter.
Add at least two emergency contacts, and tell them you did.
Turn on the lock-screen access setting (Show When Locked on iPhone, Show when locked on Android).
Learn your phone's emergency shortcut, and decide whether you want the auto-call countdown.
Check it from the lock screen once.
Do the same on the phones of the people you look after.

I keep short, practical tech guides like this on my own site, and longer explainers on ZELR. Phone menus change with software updates; Apple's and Google's pages below are the authority.

Sources

Drafted with AI assistance.