Method for automatically transmitting an emergency message in the event of an emergency call which is triggered by an operational action to be performed for this purpose on a telecommunications terminal, namely a mobile communications terminal equipped with a control unit and a radio transceiver, or on a terminal device coupled to this telecommunications terminal or by at least one sensor signal, wherein, when the emergency call is triggered, a program application processed by the control unit of the telecommunications terminal or by a control unit of a terminal device coupled to the latter generates an emergency message which contains sender details and text data relating to the emergency call situation, as well as acoustic and optical recorded data relating to the environment of the telecommunications terminal which are captured by means of at least one microphone and at least one camera, and is transmitted by the telecommunications terminal, via a radio-based telecommunications network, to backend devices of an emergency call system, where the textual parts of the emergency message are translated into the national language of the country of residence corresponding to the whereabouts, characterized in that a.) the at least one microphone and the at least one camera of the telecommunications terminal or of a terminal device coupled to the telecommunications terminal are started by the program application processed for the purpose of generating the emergency message in order to capture acoustic and optical data relating to the environment of the telecommunications terminal which are recorded with a minimum duration, b.) the whereabouts of the sender of the emergency message are determined by the backend devices on the basis of the sender details received from the telecommunications terminal with the emergency message and the text data of the emergency message are supplemented with plain text details of the determined whereabouts, c.) the emergency message consisting of the translated text data and either directly of the acoustic and optical recorded data or of a link to these recorded data held on a server of the backend devices is at least directly transmitted by the backend devices to at least one sovereignly determined, locally responsible emergency services control centre using a transmission method permitted in the country of residence for the purpose of making contact with this emergency services control centre, wherein the permitted transmission method and the telecommunications address of the emergency services control centre to be used for this purpose are gathered from a database entry held in a database of the backend devices for the country of residence. a.) the at least one microphone and the at least one camera of the telecommunications terminal or of a terminal device coupled to the telecommunications terminal are started by the program application processed for the purpose of generating the emergency message in order to capture acoustic and optical data relating to the environment of the telecommunications terminal which are recorded with a minimum duration, b.) the whereabouts of the sender of the emergency message are determined by the backend devices on the basis of the sender details received from the telecommunications terminal with the emergency message and the text data of the emergency message are supplemented with plain text details of the determined whereabouts, c.) the emergency message consisting of the translated text data and either directly of the acoustic and optical recorded data or of a link to these recorded data held on a server of the backend devices is at least directly transmitted by the backend devices to at least one sovereignly determined, locally responsible emergency services control centre using a transmission method permitted in the country of residence for the purpose of making contact with this emergency services control centre, wherein the permitted transmission method and the telecommunications address of the emergency services control centre to be used for this purpose are gathered from a database entry held in a database of the backend devices for the country of residence.