These 3 words used in an app helped police find an Ontario woman who was lost in the woods

Hannah Kavanagh · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 24, 2025 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Speedboat. Overdid. Cameos.

Those 3 words helped Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) find a pistillate who was mislaid astatine nighttime connected the Walter Bean Trail successful Cambridge, Ont., earlier this month. 

The pistillate was utilizing the app what3words, which uses a exertion that can pinpoint someone's location within 3 quadrate metres.  

She called 911 first, but was incapable to give her location. She downloaded the What3words Ltd. app, through which constabulary sent her a link. When she clicked it, officers could pinpoint her determination with those 3 words.

WRPS 911 dispatcher Jon Chessum said the app has been utilized by communicators and officers for 5 years due to the fact that of its effectiveness. 

While Chessum couldn't springiness excessively galore details connected the lawsuit of the mislaid Cambridge woman, helium said the app and exertion astir what3words effect in "one of the simplest ways to speech astir location."

Now, Chessum and police are reminding Waterloo portion residents that utilizing the app "helps successful exigency situations and it does get radical assistance faster."

'A grid implicit the full world'

Jane Stephenson, marketing manager of what3words, described the app arsenic a "grid implicit the full world, divided into three-by-three-metre squares." 

"Every azygous quadrate has an code of 3 random words. So I'm speaking to you contiguous from our office, wherever the entranceway [words are] filled, count, soap," she said.

What3words is simply a U.K.-based navigation exertion institution created 10 years agone by Chris Sheldrick, who got the idea after perpetually getting lost or not being capable to find friends while attending music festivals.

According to the company's website, it was initially created to easiness "festival-goers and travellers to transportation drivers, lawsuit organizers and postal services," but has been utilized much and more by emergency services. 

To travel up with the technology, Sheldrick enlisted mathematician Mohan Ganesalingam and translation adept Jack Waley-Cohen to make a three-word code algorithm. 

The app is escaped to use, lone charging businesses to integrate the exertion into their ain merchandise oregon systems. 

"It's fascinating, the stories we perceive each time astir the different  cases," Stephenson said.

She noted she's seen the app utilized successful the U.K. erstwhile an 18-foot python got loose successful the countryside. She believes that versatility is what makes it truthful popular, including for moving groups, for hiking, for benignant of making definite that captious suppliers get to the close portion of a warehouse."

Peter Johnson is an subordinate prof of geography and biology absorption astatine the University of Waterloo successful confederate Ontario.

Johnson said usage of the app by the constabulary is an "interesting usage lawsuit … and thing that they are moving their concern exemplary towards."

"I'm besides wondering wherefore the 911 relation couldn't person conscionable pinged their telephone and past relayed the [latitude and longitude] to police?" helium besides said successful an email to CBC News.

Johnson did, however, admit that accepted co-ordinates and addresses whitethorn not beryllium of overmuch usage successful much agrarian areas with nary municipal address. Chessum, with WRPS, said that is often the case. 

Chessum said the lone clip they spot issues with the app are if idiosyncratic successful an emergency situation continues to determination from the location aft calling for help. 

What3words is utilized successful 193 antithetic countries and translated successful 60 languages. Stephenson attributes the increasing usage of the app to its approachability and accessibility.

Chessum said WRPS powerfully recommends utilizing and getting to know the app if going hiking, to a festival oregon for immoderate different exigency wherever a loved 1 mightiness request to cognize your location.