Emergency alerts

Philip
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Some talk today about the government testing a new emergency notification system on phones, with a test on Android devices between 1-2pm today.

Turns out there’s a whole website about the proposed service:

https://www.gov.uk/alerts

Anybody got an alert? Apparently it will sound the alert even when on silent.
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Bail
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I had assumed we already had such a system, I know the US has one for all sorts of things, Tornado, Child Abduction etc. I just assumed in the UK we hadn't needed to use it yet, because I'm assuming it's only ever going to say the bombs are coming say goodbye to your loved ones...

Interesting they say if only works on devices with a 4G/5G connection and 3G devices won’t get the alert.
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TIGHazard
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Philip wrote: Tue 22 Jun, 2021 13.26 Some talk today about the government testing a new emergency notification system on phones, with a test on Android devices between 1-2pm today.

Turns out there’s a whole website about the proposed service:

https://www.gov.uk/alerts

Anybody got an alert? Apparently it will sound the alert even when on silent.
Well I didn't get one.
Bail wrote: Tue 22 Jun, 2021 13.30 I had assumed we already had such a system, I know the US has one for all sorts of things, Tornado, Child Abduction etc. I just assumed in the UK we hadn't needed to use it yet, because I'm assuming it's only ever going to say the bombs are coming say goodbye to your loved ones...

Interesting they say if only works on devices with a 4G/5G connection and 3G devices won’t get the alert.
I used to have a LG Spirit which had a 'Emergency Alerts' app preinstalled, although once I opened it it said it wasn't usable in this country (yet you still couldn't uninstall it)
allwillbewell
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It appears to have been testing in May



Familiar with the system as they use it in the states a lot, but can be annoying although I guess it is for a good cause in those cases.
All views are my own
Philip
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Almost two years later, this is being announced today, with a test set for 23rd April.

https://www.gov.uk/alerts/announcements

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-emergency ... h-12837177
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Beep
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I attended a training course on being a JESIP incident commander a few weeks back, and the facilitators did mention this - the backend to make it happen has been what's caused the delay; each Cat 1 and Cat 2 responder agency has needed access to a portal to push these messages out, but not all Cat 2 responders had sufficiently secure networks to deter misuse.

To actually send a message out requires several layers of approval and phoning the designated person to actually do it in my organisation, so whether we actually do or not is another matter. I foresee local authorities using it like it's going out of fashion though.

On a side project I've been looking at the Run/Hide/Tell advice for marauding terrorist (firearms) attacks and can't help but feel that something that can ignore phones being on silent could expose people to being causalities if during an MTFA they're hiding and their phone starts making noises which they may not be sure on how to dismiss or deactivate it, so (and heaven forbid there isn't) if there is a Plato incident I'd like to think they would exclude masts within the hot/warm zones.
Andrew
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Lets hope they don't use it as often as the BBC send out breaking news alerts

It will be interesting how it works, as for example my council area often has flooding following period of heavy rain, but in reality it only effects a small percentage of people who live in the valley bottom. Would they send it out to the entire borough
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m-in-m
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I heard that you can opt out of the system so if it does get used unnecessarily that will immediately happen.
cwathen
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'More testing required' methinks.

I thought since it was supposed to be a broadcast rather than sent to a specific phone, that every phone within range of the same mast would go off at once.

I'm out at a busy pub, a handful of phones could be heard going off at 3PM, followed by a handful more over the next few minutes. Def significantly less than half. Mine hasn't gone off at all which BBC News are reporting has happened to several newsroom staff too.
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Nick Harvey
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cwathen wrote: 'More testing required' methinks.
Please no.

I have no wish to go through all this again.
cwathen
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Nick Harvey wrote: Sun 23 Apr, 2023 15.43
cwathen wrote: 'More testing required' methinks.
Please no.

I have no wish to go through all this again.
I don't think they have a choice. Personally I'm dubious as to how useful this thing would be, but they've hyped the apparent importance of it up so much ('could be the sound that saves your life' etc). Then having a test which clearly stated that every compatible phone with 4G/5G signal with the alerts enabled would get an alert at 3PM but the way it played out a significant number of people got their message early, late, or not at all can't really be viewed as anything other than an embarrassing failure and they will inevitably need to demonstrate they can make it work as claimed.
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