Apple has announced a brand new feature for iOS 12, one that is designed to make Emergency service calls more effective.

The feature, announced this week, will automatically share a user’s location when they dial 911 on their iPhone.

This, in theory, will help the user get attention faster from the emergency services.

Upwards of 80% of 911 calls are made from mobile phones. However, getting locations is often difficult – the nature of the incident, for instance, might mean the caller cannot talk.

This new feature gets around this by automatically sharing the iPhone’s location, so Emergency services can respond accordingly.

"Apple said it will additionally use RapidSOS’s Internet Protocol-based data pipeline to securely share this HELO location data with 911 centers, to improve the response times even further," according to Tech Crunch.

It added: "RapidSOS’s technology integrates with existing software installed at many 911 centers, which is how they’ll receive the data.”

Apple was keen to stress that ALL user data will be secure; no data will ever be shared for non-emergency events and only the 911 centers will have access to the information once a call has been made.

This feature was not announced at WWDC earlier this month, but its inclusion is pretty significant. No one else has anything quite like this right now.

But they will soon, following a new edict from the FCC that states ALL mobile providers should be able to pinpoint a user’s location within 50 meters by 2021.

“Communities rely on 911 centers in an emergency, and we believe they should have the best available technology at their disposal,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in a statement about the new feature. “When every moment counts, these tools will help first responders reach our customers when they most need assistance.”

Check out ALL of iOS 12's hidden features right now for a wider overview of what Apple's new software is truly capable of!