Mobile Operators to Test UK Wide Emergency Alerts on 23rd April
The government and mobile operators have officially started activating the new UK-wide Emergency Alerts service, which has been designed to warn mobile users if there’s a “danger to life nearby” (e.g. severe flooding, fires and extreme weather). But it will only work on modern 4G and 5G Smartphones.
The Emergency Alerts system is similar to one that other countries have already adopted and aims to transform the UK’s warning and informing capability; providing a means to get urgent messages quickly to nearly 90% of mobile phones in a defined area and offering clear instructions about how best to respond.
A number of live tests have already taken place across parts of the country, such as East Suffolk and Reading. But the government also intends to conduct a full UK-wide test on the afternoon of Sunday 23rd April 2023. So don’t be surprised if there’s a “loud siren-like sound” that lasts for up to 10 seconds from your mobile on that day.
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Expected Text of the 23rd April Test
This is a test of Emergency Alerts, a new UK government service that will warn you if there’s a life-threatening emergency nearby.
In an actual emergency, follow the instructions in the alert to keep yourself and others safe.
Visit gov.uk/alerts for more information.
This is a test. You do not need to take any action.
The “initial use” of the new system will only focus on the most serious weather-related incidents, including severe flooding in England. The alerts themselves, which will be broadcast from cell towers in the vicinity of an emergency, will only ever come from the Government or emergency services. Such alerts are a free one-way secure communication and do NOT reveal anyone’s location or collect personal data.
Chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council, Mark Hardingham, said:
“Together with every fire and rescue service in the country, I’m looking forward to having Emergency Alerts available to help us to do our jobs and to help communities in the event of emergencies.
We’ve seen this type of system in action elsewhere across the world and we look forward to having the facility here in the UK – by working together with fire services and partners we want this system to help us to help you be as safe as you can if a crisis does hit.”
The only catch is that you’ll need a modern 4G or 5G Smartphone in order to receive the alerts, such as an Apple iPhone running iOS 14.5 or later, or an Android phone or tablet running Android 11 or later. If you have an earlier version of Android, you may still be able to receive alerts, but experiences may vary (search your settings for “emergency alerts“).
No doubt some people may prefer not to receive such alerts and the good news is they can be disabled. You can opt out of the emergency alerts system in your phone’s settings, just search for “emergency alerts”, and turn off ‘severe alerts’ and ‘extreme alerts’. But we have found that these specific options don’t always exist, even on modern handsets.
Take note that you should NOT read or respond to an emergency alert when you are driving or riding a vehicle. Find somewhere safe and legal to stop before picking up your phone and reading the message. “If there is nowhere safe or legal to stop close by, and nobody else is in the vehicle to read the alert, tune into live radio for information until you can find somewhere safe and legal to stop,” added the government.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Hmmm, Just another CONSPIRICY.
What a load of crap when did the UK ever have a weather threat to life??. Load of bollox .gov spying on you and your sheep like compliance.
I’m turning mine off, I think it load of bull. Just something government is up to, it just to frighten you. They can zap you with a volt through phone. No thanks. It be turned off on that day.
Conspiracy? Nah, it’s to wake us all up on a Sunday, to get down the pub to celebrate St George’s day.
Knob
All jokes aside. I honestly think the UK Government officials knows something we don’t know probably nothing or maybe it’s because the Russian government and stupidity
This was on the cards before Russia decided it wanted to kill people to get more land.
It can be disabled and I have done so. The government may start using it for extreme alerts, but I doubt it will stop there.
I think it has been brought into focus after the COVID-19 situation, where they had to resort to SMS.
Unfortunately that didn’t work well for a number of reasons, so the plans that had already been developed to look at cell-broadcast suddenly became a good idea again.
@Jon, I remember the text messages we had with Co-vid, I got rid of them right away, I did not install the covid app either.
It’s just replacing the existing system that calls landlines. Most often used for flood danger warnings.
USA has had this for some time. This is good that the 4 UK operators are adopting it. We’ll probably hardly need it but it’s a good thing.
Yes it is
They are not adopting it, they have no choice in the matter. Thankfully, it can be disabled on phones
Have heard from many recipients of these emergency alerts in the USA and they seem to say they are far overused and subsequently become an annoyance that is ignored.
Hope UKGov resist the urge to overuse them because same thing will happen here.
iPhone -> Settings -> Notifications -> Scroll to the very botton and turn off what you don’t want.
Hopefully it’s not overused but glad we get something like they do in other countries. If something major happened people would be still be asking why we don’t have something like that. No pleasing some folk.
This is the problem I have with it, in one way it is a good idea, but I fear it will be overused. Maybe not at first.
Many years ago, I well recall a test of a site-wide new tannoy system. The test went something like this: ‘This is a test of the new tannoy system. Any sections not hearing this broadcast should report a fault to extension 313.’
Needless to say, extension 313 was very busy for the rest of the day!
But if they never heard it how did they know where to call lol
Bizarre we didn’t have something like this before. The 4 minute warning can be delivered more efficiently now.
They did but the down and outs weren’t notified before.
I disabled it on my phone months ago when I first heard about it, I don’t trust the government not to use it for other things.
Why will no one be surprised. Sainsburys have asked to use it as well.
Short of spam messaging I’m not sure if it CAN be used for “other things”, to my understanding it is a standard for sending mass location-centred messages to phones, but has not other capabilities unless multiple governments coerce google/apple in to adding them? They could send any spam message they liked,but all they can do is send messages? No data traffic the other way possible?
But given the Uk government’s track record of getting everything wrong (over-reacting to covid rather than being calm like Sweden, blaming online content for all manner of hate but not seeking to fix the education system to make people immune to nasty words, screaming for net zero and evil but useless surveillance to supposedly achieve it yet not investing properly in nuclear power and hydrogen filling stations…) I think it is likely that for some time the netional scale test of the alert system will probably overwhelm mobile networks?
Calls dropped?
SMS messages sent at the time lost in the ether forever?
Mobile broadband devices affected (because one cannot dismiss/acknowledge/ok on them due to lack of user interface)?
ISP back-end networks dropping out from a flow of emergency message traffic?
Remote weather stations knocked ofline and needing someone to go out in the wilderness to reconenct them in person?
Postal service disrupted (even mroe than it already is)?
Live TV and radio failing (bet some kit in the studios has SIMs in it which might crash?)?
…
What time will this occur and how loud will it be?
With my dodgy ticker I will need to be near a defibrillator.
No worries there Roger, there is a very good chance you will be close to one, since the agenda/vax push kicked off in 2019, I must add however that its purely coincidence that the vax, heart attacks/strokes/sudden deaths etc, and the defibrillator installation’s all happening around the same time does not mean they are in any way related, at all, honest.
My mother died in a flash flood in Spain 2003 April 22nd so I don’t reminding of hurt or potential threat. I remember the Sky TV & newspaper stories so I have switched off my alert. Thanks.
Sorry for your loss but surely sense would say leaving it on is even more important to you considering these things can save lives and thats exactly what you are mourning. We have all lost at least one special person and the hurt will live with us forever.
Sorry for your lost, this is why I think in one way the alert system is a good idea, certainly for stuff like that.
I think it depends on where you live and where you go. Where I live if I was flooded then the rest of the city would be underwater and if there are floods down the lower end of the city there are plenty of people on social media who will put notices up. High winds I already get a notification on my phone.
They say it is not going to be used for terrorists alerts, well the police says they are not going to use it at the moment. It could cause problems if you warn people of a terrorist alert in one place, that could move people to another place and the terrorists may use that information.
Again, sorry for your lost.
After the lockdown messaging they can keep it to themselves.
Labour have said they will reverse this decision, they said protecting the general public is not their responsibility.
Stay in the building and wait for help to arrive. Those that didnt follow that advice lived. #Grenfell
RIP Those that were burned alive.
There are many other examples where people didn’t listen to official advice and died because of it so your comment is very one sided.
This level of control which is wholly unnecessary has been seen worldwide. Elsewhere we called it communism. A govt that forced its parental beliefs and views on its people irrespective of their rights or views.
Yes the system is needed and useful.
However, being forced off or locke out nof yo phone whil;st being forced to respond is nothing more than control. If I want to reply I have a right to choose.. not be Forced to. If as much effort was placed on immigration and spongers we could be great again but the emphasis is on ulling everyone down to the lowest common denominator sand level so its more readily controllable.
Thank a Google update for the invasive trespassing app that is very well hidden in the core system files, anyone recall they tested a few years ago, actually coincidently a month or two after I publically mentioned it and what it can do, the test required a response, the response is logged as accepted, which the data is needed to see if the test is successful, there is more secretive testing included in it behind the phone alert system, even though all phones are monitored anyway, access ports and encryption keys will be logged and collected for security threat reasons when the alert system is acknowledged.
Hi All
1. Do any teckies know the route these alerts are travelling by? Via Wifi or cellular towers or other or both ?
2. Are these alerts downloading software to devices? Info is clearly being sent and devices are receiving it without mobile numbers.
3. What is the purpose of the ‘DISMISS’ button I’ve seen? Is this an acknowledgement and if so is that collectable to the sender?
4. How granular is this? i.e. Can they target individual phones within a street?
5. The SIREN sound. What frequency is this, as there is not any choice on sound? Would this frequency vibrate any graphene oxide that people may have in them. e.g. The nanotech that’s in plenty of patents and alleged to be undeclared but in the covid shots.
I would guess through cellular towers since it says only Modern 4G & 5G phones.
I don’t see how an alert can download software. E.g, phones are designed to be secure from unauthorised access.
Dismiss / ok / continue. It’ll be an alert you basically acknowledge, but no data is sent back to the government, it’s just a one way thing.
I think it targets within a range, depending on where the emergency is occurring, emergency services will broadcast from towers close to the emergency so it’s not target per person, more per area.
Graphene Oxide? Isn’t FDA or CDC or MHRA approved, so not sure where you got that from.
Anyone know if these alerts will interfere with mobile broadband hotspot devices (ones where you put a SIM in and they give a wi-fi hotspot)? Because a mobile broadband device definitely won’t have any means by which a user can “click” “acknowledge/dismiss/ok”. And what about anything else which has a 4G or 5G SIM in it but is not a phone, for example smart meters and some connected cars, are they allgoing to get faults from this? Thanks
Assuring public safety requires testing emergency alerts on a national level. Med Alert System This project has the potential to significantly improve emergency communication and aid in public awareness. It’s encouraging to see mobile providers working together for such a worthwhile cause.
For More Info:- https://www.medicalcarealert.com/