However, according to the Search and Rescue team, issues with the app not refreshing have caused emergency resources in Wiltshire to be sent to the wrong location during a serious incident.
Rudy Arthur takes an academic look at the problems behind W3W – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.16025
It concludes:
“Contrary to what W3W claim, this work has shown that many confusable W3W addresses
are likely to exist and has identified some serious problems with the W3W algorithm […] I would caution against the widespread adoption of W3W […] W3W should not be adopted as critical infrastructure”
“Despite Robin using the app, however, and passing the generated three words “prime, twice, shows”, to the call handler, he said they were still not able to pin down a location.”
Yet another case of emergency services struggling to find an incident because of problems with a #What3Words location. It’s really long past time police stopped both promoting it and/or building reliance on it into their systems. pic.twitter.com/Qa75Cau8ey
— Matt Ashby (@LessCrime) May 19, 2022
Found (yet) another way what3words is functionally useless: they seem to have multiple word lists… searching this location on the English app does not return any results
— Michael Cullen (@mich181189) March 11, 2022
(cc @alexbloor @cybergibbons ) pic.twitter.com/250ddn9spw
“Initial information via W3W, gave the casualties location on Big Moor. We were suspicious of the integrity of the location, as the incident was reported at a bridge and not in the middle of the moor.
“After a fly over by Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland Air Ambulance Helimed 54, no one could be seen. Further investigations and with the help of Phonefind technology, the new position showed her at the Packhorse bridge in South Burbage.
“All resources quickly relocated to South Burbage where the casualty and friend were rapidly located.”
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4982237585138282&id=114061288622627
Apps are now having to work around the flaws… pic.twitter.com/sBxdyoXRwn
— Paul (@xciv) August 12, 2021
Aaron Toponce, a systems administrator at XMission, received a letter on Thursday from London-based law firm JA Kemp representing What3Words, requesting that he delete tweets related to the open-source alternative, WhatFreeWords. The letter also demands that he disclose to the law firm the identity of the person or people with whom he had shared a copy of the software, agree that he would not make any further copies of the software and to delete any copies of the software he had in his possession.
https://www.walklakes.co.uk/opus64534.html
Twisted your ankle on a fell and need help and want to know your What 3 Words location so you can pass this on to emergency services? Well, for a start do you have a mobile phone? Is it working or did you break it when you fell over? Has it still got charge or is the battery flat? Assuming it is working do you have a data connection? And if you do are the What 3 Words servers online?
