please empty your brain below
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Had this when we visited the US last year during the Florida hurricane. At Tampa Intl and phones everywhere were going off. Wondered what on earth was happening.
And for days afterwards, the alerts kept coming as we were in the vicinity of the hurricane.
Should have stayed at home. Would have saved us spending 3 days in a high school shelter.
Picc Driver | 20.03.23 - 7:06 a.m. | #
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I may be weird, but when I heard about this yesterday, I got excited about it. It's like we are living in Japan now!
Greg | 20.03.23 - 7:24 a.m. | #
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I’m fascinated to know if opting out of “severe” alerts or “extreme” alerts is the one to do.
Fortunately I have two phones with two numbers, so I’ll opt out of severe on one, and extreme on the other and see what happens. (And assume that opting out of both will definitely prevent the message from appearing).
I also can’t help but think, “but what if there’s a genuine need to use this alert system” (I pray not, of course!) before April 23rd. A certain level of terrifying irony there..
David | 20.03.23 - 7:26 a.m. | #
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What I want to know is this. If my house is about to flood, and I’m not in range of my local mast when the alert comes through, how do I hear about it?
dg writes: sign up to the Flood Warning service.
N Garnham | 20.03.23 - 7:30 a.m. | #
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there will still be people surprised by this. The same people who travelled by bus as normal to the underground last Wednesday and found there were no tubes and were frantically asking everyone how they were going to get to work
peewit | 20.03.23 - 7:40 a.m. | #
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About time we used existing technology for this purpose, in my humble opinion.
Comments could interesting today though, I'm off out for some popcorn.
Frank F | 20.03.23 - 7:42 a.m. | #
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NZ had such a test last May. No big deal.
Betterbee | 20.03.23 - 7:46 a.m. | #
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I suppose it will be useful if I'm not at home.
If I am home, won't hear a damn thing being four or five miles from the nearest mobile signal of any type.
On the plus side, being so remote means that anything big enough to affect us will probably be unavoidable anyhow.
Putters | 20.03.23 - 7:50 a.m. | #
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Details have been available on YouTube for some time.
dg writes: Of the system, yes. Of the test, no.
NLW | 20.03.23 - 7:50 a.m. | #
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I'm sure they've done this before. A couple of years ago. Certainly in the Reading area. Really no big deal.
dg writes: Trials have been held in East Suffolk (25th May 2021) and Reading (15th June 2021).
Andy V | 20.03.23 - 8:07 a.m. | #
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I hadn’t seen or heard the News yesterday, so I enjoyed today’s post as another excellent dg spoof. Somehow I wish it was. The feeling that an agency can override my phone in any way is chilling. If the emergency is ultra-dire like an incoming nuclear strike then I don’t want to know about it anyway. Ah well, they’re only trying to help…
Herbof | 20.03.23 - 8:19 a.m. | #
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No problem with this system but I don't buy why it is being put in place. This is your new, modern 4 minute warning
Simon G | 20.03.23 - 8:25 a.m. | #
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Living in France we've had the phone warning system for a while, but so many people have turned the warnings off they are now renewing the siren system the phone warnings were meant to replace.
Not that many people seem to know the code for the siren system.
We wrote about it a couple of years ago.
Simon | Homepage | 20.03.23 - 8:32 a.m. | #
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I don’t have any issues with doing this and I know lots of countries have this technology so the people thinking this is impacting their civil liberties need to have a word with themselves.
I do wonder how often this will be used and actually save lives; which is presumably the rationale? We just don’t have the type of disasters other countries have. In fact I can’t think of a sudden weather or civil emergency in the last 20 years where this could have a helped to warn people.
David | 20.03.23 - 8:42 a.m. | #
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Alerts in other countries are for known risks like hurricanes, floods and tsunamis, but in the UK it's intended for (insert name of emergency here), so different emergencies will require different actions.
'Initially it'll be used for weather related emergencies like flooding or wildfires', are they going to send alerts for hot sunny days 'to save the NHS' and as a result you risk being stopped by the police if you go out.
If it's a terrorist attack then when do they decide that they have enough information to send an alert/s, and what information do they send out, for example on 7th July 2005, the riots in 2011 or a Paris style shooting spree in November 2015.
Nice to see DG casually approving of the death of those who don't follow government advice in the final paragraph, the BBC has trained you well.
Still Anon | 20.03.23 - 8:55 a.m. | #
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Suppose it is real emergency alert on the 23 April, how will we know and what should we do ?
mikeH | 20.03.23 - 8:56 a.m. | #
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Some overthinking going on here I feel. On a positive note, it's given DG content for today. I wonder what the content for 23 and 24 April will be. Perhaps we should be alerted.
Stuart R | 20.03.23 - 8:57 a.m. | #
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I guess someone has done a risk assessment of drivers across the country being distracted by a test siren, versus the benefits of bona fide alerts forever after.
Rich G | Homepage | 20.03.23 - 9:01 a.m. | #
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Death penalty for people who don't blindly follow government guidance? What a nasty little logical corner you've thought yourself into dg.
Max | 20.03.23 - 9:03 a.m. | #
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I’ve experienced this in Japan and Korea. Quite scary when you’re on a train and everyone’s phone starts going off in unison, especially if you have no idea what the message says!
Alan | 20.03.23 - 9:07 a.m. | #
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It's the prospect of 'jump out of your skin' siren that is already making me anxious. Can I opt in to get it without that? (Guessing the answer is no). So I will probably end up turning my phone off on the 23rd.
Sarah | 20.03.23 - 9:08 a.m. | #
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A blog that normally has a healthy scepticism regarding instructions from "Them" seems to have had a schizophrenic episode in the final sentence.
David B | 20.03.23 - 9:11 a.m. | #
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On holiday in Norway a few years ago, walking through a housing area, when an air raid siren went off, which was vaguely disturbing as we didn't know why.
Then a friendly expat came out of his house and explained it's their warning system, when the siren sounds you're supposed to tune your radio to a certain official channel and listen to the announcements.
And it gets tested from time to time.
(And I guess all those who don't hear it should report it... :-)
Joho | Homepage | 20.03.23 - 9:13 a.m. | #
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Will the crusading cyclists be out reporting motorists who have the temerity to acknowledge the alert whilst driving?
David | Homepage | 20.03.23 - 9:35 a.m. | #
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Only those who selfcensor the traitorous BBC will be saved.
lumme | 20.03.23 - 9:36 a.m. | #
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Since most people at home are connected via wi-fi rather than 4G or 5G, it's not going to be a very effective method of warning. Maybe a simultaneous power cut is necessary, but would that disable the 4/5G masts too?
Keith | 20.03.23 - 9:38 a.m. | #
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It can’t be as bad as in the USA though, sat in an airport and we heard the siren as everyone’s phones went off and the alert was just about a missing child, hardly an emergency.
Jon | 20.03.23 - 9:41 a.m. | #
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Many people have a severe noise sensitivity and startle reaction (think PTSD, etc.); the case of women who are concealing an emergency phone in a domestic violence situation has been made, so I can think of a lot of reasons to switch off these alerts. We already DO have things like flood alerts you can opt in to. We are so unlikely to have a killer hurricane. Anything else, personally, I'd rather not know in advance that it's time to bend over and kiss my a** goodbye, so count me among the authority-hating refuseniks.
Pamela | 20.03.23 - 10:10 a.m. | #
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Keith may have misunderstood. The alert will still come to people at home using WiFi. Unless they have no mobile signal at that location.
Malcolm of Kent | 20.03.23 - 10:25 a.m. | #
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Reading Simon's linked post about the French version, I see it was triggered by a European directive.
Also that the French still have a system of sirens: we got rid of ours as part of the post cold war defence cuts.
But perhaps the bottom line is that we do need some kind of public alert system (with protections against abuse) - hopefully better than placard wearing policemen cycling around and blowing their whistles. And if it is going to be based on mobile phones, what about those who - for whatever reason - don't have one?
Jeremy GH | 20.03.23 - 10:25 a.m. | #
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So last Friday (before Mothers Day) was the equivalent anniversary of the first lockdown. Would they have used it for that?
Mike Jones | 20.03.23 - 10:30 a.m. | #
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It sounds more like a demo than a test, as it's presumably already known to work and people's response won't be relevant to what happens in a real emergency. I can't find any enable/disable setting on my phone so I await it with interest. Think I might turn my elderly mother's phone off if I can as she panics if even a text message arrives.
A tiny bit of me wonders if this idea conflicts with the advice to hide from terrorists and put your phone on silent.
Andrew S | 20.03.23 - 10:40 a.m. | #
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I've just checked the "compatible devices" page. Android v11 and above it says; mine is v8. Sigh. A simple text message might have been more universal.
Andrew S | 20.03.23 - 10:54 a.m. | #
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That my phone has an "Emergency Alert" setting (that I just checked having read this post) suggests that this is pretty commonplace elsewhere.
Seems a sensible use of technology, though no use to people with older phones.
Mikey C | 20.03.23 - 11:26 a.m. | #
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From personal experience, the East Suffolk trial extended as far up as North Norfolk, at least on "Three". And I may have accidentally experienced other trials. This is on a fairly old, low end 4G phone (which didn't that the options enabled to allow me to silence the test messages).
It may or may not be a coincidence that Holt, Norfolk is one of the few rural towns to recent get 5G (only Three, just the one mast, mast shared with EE who haven't switched 5G on yet).
MilesT | 20.03.23 - 12:55 p.m. | #
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If that sentence was loonbait, dg, it seems to have worked.
D9000 | 20.03.23 - 12:58 p.m. | #
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The first time I got an alert, in the US, on my iPhone it was LOUD. The alert was for a missing child in a town a hundred miles away. I went into settings and disabled emergency alerts. There should be a better way of sending emergency alerts to a phone.
Bob | 20.03.23 - 1:04 p.m. | #
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Have not been able to find this in settings, (although I did manage to turn off the split keyboard which mysteriously appeared yesterday).
Kev | 20.03.23 - 1:05 p.m. | #
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I'm v8 as well. And, to be on the safe side, there's no mobile reception indoors here anyway.
The Goverbnment website also says you won't get an alert if your device is wifi only. Not sure if that means it will do so if it's 4/5G compatible but only receiving a wifi signal
timbo | 20.03.23 - 1:20 p.m. | #
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It’s about time that such as system has been introduced here. I do note that some ‘cookers’ that follow conspiracy theory nonsense are now latching on to this.
I have received text based messages before when in Australia about bushfires, and listening to the radio broadcasts do send a shiver down the spine. And in USA have had the test or information message flash up on Tv, it’s the alert sound that draws attention.
Some Australian states also have good apps and websites that advise of any incidents occurring (you have to find them on map or list) and this is quite varied.
This will be a good system for those areas at UK at risk of death from weather events such as flooding or dam breaches especially.
sinners | 20.03.23 - 2:20 p.m. | #
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We once received an emergency alert here in Ontario that read something along the lines of: "ALERT: There was an incident at the nuclear power plant. But there is absolutely no problem. Do not panic." Which... had the opposite effect.
quin | 20.03.23 - 2:39 p.m. | #
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One other thing worth adding--the severe emergency alert system is also used for Amber Alerts. If you're not familiar with those, these are alerts to keep an eye out for missing children. But--they are sent to all 14 million people in the province.
This is a controversial way of using the alert system, as you quite often get alerts of children with no clear physical description missing over 500 miles away. Because of the nuclear snafu and the lack of targeting, people have started tuning them out (as described in other countries upthread.)
quin | 20.03.23 - 2:46 p.m. | #
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When they tested the system here in the US, people freaked out about government over-reach and other loony nonsense....but in the end, I've only received 2 alerts since the system went live and one was for a kidnapped child, the other for possible flooding. It's not the intrusion anyone thinks it's going to be. I'm just hoping that someday the alert goes off when I'm at the end of an intimate moment...just so I can say "well, now everyone knows how great that felt".
Steven | 20.03.23 - 3:01 p.m. | #
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1. They did a similar test run in Germany a few months ago, and there the test message was sent at the uppermost priority level which the system supports, which AFAIK cannot be opted out of.
(In the original US warning system, that's the so-called "Presidential Alert". Depending on your phone, that designation might have been properly localised, or maybe just left as is/translated literally, which might cause some confusion if your country's president doesn't have the same importance as the US president, or maybe doesn't even exist in the first place.)
2. I think the Android version given is only the minimum version that's sort of guaranteed to work.
In fact Android has supported that kind of messages all the way back to at least Android 4 in 2012 (!) – the only problem is that for whatever reasons, some manufacturers (like e.g. Samsung) actively went out of their way to disable that system again in countries that weren't known to use it at the time, so now of course they need to put out another update which specifically re-enables those messages for the UK, too.
I still have an older phone with Android 6 where the manufacturer didn't bother with that kind of unnecessary customisations and just left warning messages enabled no matter what country you're in, and it received the German test warning just fine.
Jan | 20.03.23 - 4:34 p.m. | #
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Shame on you for that last sentence. I will keep the system on for now, but would be willing to put £100 on these 'emergency' alerts for 'extreme' events being issued for:
-very hot days
-very cold days
-days when the NHS is excessively overcrowded
- very polluted days
It will gradually become normal to hear this several times a year. Some people will raise objections to an 'emergency' system being used in this way. "We were promised that this would only be for genuinely very extreme events and we'd hear it maybe once a decade at most!" they'll say. "Do you want people to DIE then you heartless bastard!!!?" DG and those who think like him will reply.
barbicanman | 20.03.23 - 5:02 p.m. | #
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In Hong Kong, they (mis)used it to send an alert that a major hospital was closed to all patients aside from COVID-19 ones. A non negligible part of the of population turned their alerts off following that.
Prior to that, which was visibly the first use of the new system, SMS alerts used to be sent out by the Police (LARGE GATHERINGS MAY OCCUR, etc...) and for electoral purposes (COME OUT AND VOTE).
The SMS alert system wasn't the most reliable. Depending on which mobile network you were subscribed to, you would get the alerts at different times or not at all.
Matthieu | 20.03.23 - 5:15 p.m. | #
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I am amazed at the reaction of some people to a test of a warning system which they can freely opt out of. When I was young the old wartime type air raid sirens were tested every few years and nobody made a fuss. These were largely dismantled in the early 90s so I am glad a replacement is now being tested. And the fact that the government feels the need to test a warning system at a time when the west's involvement in a war in eastern Europe is steadily ratcheting up is just one of those coincidences.
HW | 20.03.23 - 5:21 p.m. | #
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It is always curious to me how keen some authority-hating refuseniks are to advertise their status. If I didn't trust authority, I'd want to keep that quiet.
This is going to read like trolling, but I am genuinely curious: If you disabled these notifications, would the government be able to tell that you had done so (and were therefore possibly an authority-hating refusenik)?
dg writes: no
Will | 20.03.23 - 5:38 p.m. | #
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I see some of the comments from the usual suspects are as expected
Tom | 20.03.23 - 8:37 p.m. | #
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My phone isn't usually on at the weekend, so will I get the siren on Monday morning instead?
Ian | 20.03.23 - 10:02 p.m. | #
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I don't have a problem with alerts, but I do have a problem with sudden, unexpected sirens. I am feeling panicked just thinking about it as I will have forgotten all about it by then - I'm one of those who'd forgotten it was Red Nose Day!
I have a Galaxy S7 so it may not work anyway, but will turn the volume right down, just in case!
Cornish Cockney | 20.03.23 - 10:38 p.m. | #
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My town, like a lot of other towns in the US, tests their sirens once a month. Most people don't care because the siren isn't in their pocket. And they're useful, I've taken cover a couple of times when they went off with bad weather approaching. A phone emergency alert system that you feel you have to turn off isn't useful.
Bob | 20.03.23 - 10:38 p.m. | #
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'will turn the volume right down'
I don't think you can set the volume of an emergency alert on a phone.
Bob | 20.03.23 - 10:45 p.m. | #
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The overlap between those who are "depressingly pessimistic" and those who are anti-vaxxers or Covid deniers is 100%.
Jordan D | 20.03.23 - 10:53 p.m. | #
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Perhaps some of the abreaction to the idea of this system is based on scepticism resulting from government comms during the pandemic. Visible infighting between govt and scientists, the test’n’ trace debacle, the Cummings incident and the revelation of total hypocrisy in Partygate have seriously damaged any credibility government messaging might once have had. The notion that alerts will “initially” be for natural disasters opens up the question of whether other later uses are intended and what they might be.
Labourer | 20.03.23 - 10:56 p.m. | #
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I look forward to the usual mishaps that occur when the U.K. government attempts anything techy.
- entirety of NE England left out of test
- Leicester residents plagued by nonstop sirens for 24 hours
- East London residents receive oddly specific and thus rather frightening information for a generic test message
- man in Pembrokeshire receives test siren as expected, but also receives the confidential NHS data of 50,000 Brits
- care homes explode
MK | 20.03.23 - 11:07 p.m. | #
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I just knew today's comments would be an entertainment in themselves.
Frank F | 20.03.23 - 11:22 p.m. | #
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Labourer - exactly my point at 8:19am. We now have a system that could conceivably become open to political or corporate abuse of the highest order. As practised in a large country in the far east. Ultimately, there will be artificial unintelligence to organise it all. Not to worry, we are being looked after. Siren call at 3am.
Herbof | 21.03.23 - 4:49 a.m. | #
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What’s been fascinating is the number of people who believe “the government could abuse this, and because they’re the government they definitely will.”
diamond geezer | Homepage | 21.03.23 - 7:28 a.m. | #
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I use a Nokia 2G mobile telephone which is switched-off some of the time, including overnight. When I go to theatre/concert, I switch off and remove battery.
anon | 21.03.23 - 10:31 a.m. | #
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Given the behaviour of so many MPs in recent times (expenses scandal, lobbying, lying to Parliament, breaking the Ministerial Code) and especially that of Johnson and co, is it any wonder government credibility has been shot to pieces? It’s very sad that consistent misbehaviour and corruption has undermined decades of belief (at least in the UK, as opposed to the US) that a democratically-elected government would act in the interests of the population and not its own narrow sectional interests or those of its funders.
Labourer | 21.03.23 - 5:40 p.m. | #
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The first time this test (the "Bundesweiter Warntag") was attempted in Germany in 2021, nothing happened. (It's a good thing that the system gets tested.) The second time round (December 2022) it worked very nicely and was absolutely terrifying if you were in a room with lots of phones... The context here was partially the 2021 floods which claimed over 180 lives in Germany. At least it was during a weekday when everyone was at work - timing it on a Sunday evening seems like it might be more disruptive.
Elyas | 21.03.23 - 6:44 p.m. | #
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We’ve had this system in NL for a few years, tested every 6 months, but it still scares the @%&% out of you when it goes off for real (112 system went down, so we all got told not to call 112, but call another number.)
Rob C | 24.03.23 - 8:00 p.m. | #
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I was surprised to see a new poster outside my local (Theobalds Grove) station advising of the Emergency Alert system being now active and what it is. No mention of the test on the poster though.
HW | 29.03.23 - 9:22 a.m. | #
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