Emergency alerts to your phone

[TheFirstOfHerName]

From April, the government will be able to send emergency alerts to our mobile phones.

www.gov.uk/alerts

A siren will go off, even if your phone is on silent. You won't be able to do anything else on your phone until you turn it off. They plan to test this on 23 April.

I understand the reasons why this can be helpful, and in areas where people need to suddenly evacuate due to wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes etc it could save lives.

However, personally I don't want it, and have disabled it on my phone.

1. Of the emergencies I might experience, I'm not sure I'd want to be alerted to any of them via this method. If a flood or storm is imminent, I'll find out through the usual channels. If a nuclear missile is heading my way, having a few minutes' warning will not help.

1. This system is being run / overseen by the UK government, and my trust in them has been somewhat eroded over the past few years.

1. I have an anxiety disorder (reasonably well managed with combination of medication and other methods) and I think the cost to my anxiety levels of having my phone suddenly sirenning at me outweighs the negligible probability of this system saving my life.

If you are the kind of calm, resilient person who could have these alarms going off and it not completely throw you, then great.

well, I am not talking about an international nuclear threat, maybe an airstrike, or terrorist dirty bomb, and the whole point of the text alert is it will tell you what to do

Why would there be panic? Other countries manage using a similar system.

My first thought was what if you are already involved in a terrorist incident this could cause your phone to give away your position. (Obviously been watching too much crime drama shows).
I overall think it is a good idea but I don't like the idea of it making a noise until you shut it off. I would think 10 sec or so would be OK. My phone alarm went off while I was driving once it was annoying and a lot more distracting (as in it was much harder to concentrate on the road) than I expected even though I knew what it was. However I will leave it on and see what it is like.

Why would there be panic? Other countries manage using a similar system.

Have you forgotten the panic over toilet rolls at the start of Covid? If people panicked about us imagine how they'll react in a real crisis!

@EmmaEmerald Found it. Went into Settings via the text message screen and its already switched off.

What a lot of fuss. After the test, I very much doubt most of us will get one of these from one decade to the next (severe floods seem the most likely cause).

BBC says "The messages will include details of the area impacted and instructions about how to respond. They will only be sent where there is an immediate risk to life and many people may not receive an alert for months or years."

I agree if you are driving it will be unnecessarily distracting.

It could really ruin a night at the theatre.

Other countries dont have the lack of trust in their Government like we do. Which our Government has brought entirely on themselves.

We’ll have a new government soon 🤞

Bloody well said!!

So nothing to panic about. If there is a problem, you will get notified - the more information the better. If there isn’t a problem, the alert won’t be sent.

@CoffeeWithCheese just so you know it’s not using your phone number to send out the alert. It’s using the mass so it’s more like a radio wave - whatever you select or don’t select on your phone bill won’t be relevant so if you don’t want the alert you’ll have to turn it off in settings.

Yes the theatre could get interesting.

www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2005/11/22/richard-griffiths-ejects-cell-phone-user-from-theatre/

You need to scroll down past those.

Yes 100% agree, think it will be overused, as there now seems to be one crisis/emergency after another. I will disable it, if I can.

We experienced it in Greece when severe weather was forecast. Initially a bit alarming as I didn’t know what the noise was - never heard my phone do that! However it did make me wonder why we didn’t have something similar here. Don’t see the problem really so totally support it as long as it’s not over used and people switch it off!

This is the problem. If it really was only going to be used for serious issues it a problem but the government, whichever party that is, won't stick to that.

I agree. Some kind of alert system like this would have saved lives at Grenfell Tower. As witnesses said in the public inquiry, part of the reason the fire officers didn't order an evacuation of the building when it was clear the fire service couldn't control it, was the lack of means of telling the residents to evacuate, so evacuation, at least initially, wasn't considered a viable option and control room operators continued to tell residents to stay put! It was only later that control room operators started to tell callers to get themselves out, but they had no resources to call back earlier callers telling them the "stay put" instruction was revoked!

My main concern is that it says if you don’t accept the alert you won’t be able to use all of your devices features but nowhere does it tell you, or can I find out, what features I wouldn’t be able to use. I don’t like being forced into things, particularly by the Government. I don’t like anywhere that has wildfires, or flooding, or tornadoes so don’t see the point of it at all.

That is a very good example.

I think it's a good idea and might save lives.

It just means you have to press okay when the alert pops up. Like on an iPhone you can’t use your phone if you’ve set an alarm until you press snooze or dismiss.

THIS

twitter.com/NorthBritish/status/1637816510314889216?s=20

Heard someone say on a news programme earlier "Imagine if Hancock had been in charge of this"

shudders