The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) replaced employee desk phones with calling software used on their laptops, something the union says poses safety issues, including during a recent medical emergency.

Justin Chen, president of the biggest EPA employee union, told The Hill that the additional software that’s supposed to handle 9-1-1 geolocation “doesn’t really work, apparently.”

Chen said that this recently came up during an emergency situation in the EPA’s San Francisco office, adding the issue “ended up delaying a response.”

Another EPA employee said that the emergency service software “has not worked since the time it was installed” last year.

“It pops up on your computer and it just says, ‘unable to connect,’ and then we’ve been instructed to just click on the ‘x’ box and close the program,” they said, adding the direction came from managers at the agency.

In the case of the medical emergency, the regular call software worked, but “9-1-1’s response was delayed by the fact that they could not locate where the phone call was coming from,” the staffer said.

Ultimately, the person who had the medical emergency was OK, the employee said, but Chen said the situation puts safety at risk.

“We’ve seen increased violence, especially against federal employees … we do active shooter drills in all the buildings,” said Chen, who is president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238. “If you don’t [have] cell service, if something like that happens, it’s like good luck doing a phone call from your laptop, I guess.”

The EPA says there’s not a widespread issue with the software, while companies involved with it say they’re not the ones to blame.

An EPA spokesperson described the switch to call software as an improvement and said they were not aware of any broad malfunctions.

“The legacy desk‑phone systems were at end‑of‑life and no longer vendor‑supported, which can create reliability and cybersecurity concerns. The cloud‑based platform improves resilience, security, and continuity of operations,” said the spokesperson, who did not provide their name.

“After review, the EPA did not identify any system-wide malfunctions or issues with the E911 software. EPA’s softphone platform uses Enhanced 911 (E911) capabilities that route emergency calls to the nearest Public Safety Answering Point and transmit the caller’s registered location. We routinely validate configurations and encourage any employee with questions to contact the IT Service Desk,” the spokesperson added.

Asked specifically about the San Francisco incident, they said it was “still under investigation, but we have not identified any system‑wide malfunction and Region 9 IT staff have had no reported malfunctions to date.”

Kevin Kito, president and CEO of software company 911 Secure, which makes the 9-1-1 software, said that his company has not received complaints about it. He also said his firm doesn’t work directly with the EPA, instead going through phone system provider Avaya.

After receiving The Hill’s questions, he said, “We went to our contacts at Avaya, because we don’t have any open tickets, nobody’s …complaining or anything.

Kito said that any connection issues would be because of the computer settings, not the software itself.

He added that if someone clicks on the “x” box, the program should pop back up every few minutes. If they were to shut it down entirely, they would get a warning message saying that closing the program could prevent emergency services from finding them.

“We try [to] do everything we can to make sure that the person who is using the application knows how important it is for them to keep it up,” he said.

Avaya spokesperson Julianne Embry said in an email that the EPA contract, including the integration of the geolocation software, is held and managed by AT&T. Embry said that Avaya simply provides the laptop calling services, and that there are no issues with that service.

AT&T did not provide comment to The Hill.

Chen, meanwhile, said that this is not the only issue that the swap to call software has created for employees. He said that the old system allowed field workers such as inspectors to mask their cell phone numbers and dial through the EPA system.

Now, he said, they have to use their personal cell phone numbers, calling it “a major problem.”

“Most of those workers, inspectors and such — they don’t have …work cell phones,” he said. “If they were going to be calling a facility to give them a heads up that they’re outside their door for an inspection or something like that… they would either have to use their own personal number or somehow connect their laptop to a wireless signal.”

However, the EPA said that staffers are required to only use authorized devices and they don’t need to use their personal cell phones, adding that field staff should contact IT to figure out how to be reachable in the field.

“Staff can make and receive calls using their official EPA number through the authorized softphone application. Employees who need assistance configuring calling features or reachability while in the field should contact EPA’s IT Service Desk,” the agency spokesperson said. “We continue to evaluate and enable features that meet operational needs while maintaining security and privacy requirements.”

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