Your Country Needs Lerts

Leggy has picked up on this one, but he has made a slight error, which I will come to.

A siren-like alert will be sent to mobile phone users across the UK next month to test a new government public warning system.

It allows the government and emergency services to send urgent messages warning the public of life-threatening situations like flooding or wildfires.

The test is expected to take place in the early evening of 23 April.

Phone users will have to acknowledge the alert before they can use other features on their devices.

A message will appear on the home screens of people’s devices during the test, with vibration and a loud warning sound that will ring for about 10 seconds, even if the phone is set to silent.

Everything Leggy says about the unnecessary stupidity of this system holds up. Just how many life threatening weather events or terror attacks do we get where this system might be even remotely useful?

As close to zero as makes no difference.

Where Leggy has got it wrong – and I’m not sure where the information comes from – is that you can’t switch it off. Yes, you can.

People can opt out by searching their device settings for emergency alerts and then turning off severe and extreme ones. Officials say the alerts could be life-saving, though, advising against switching them off.

I’ve already done it. I can’t say about Apple devices, but for Android, go into the settings menu and look for ‘Safety and Emergency.’

Scroll down to ‘Emergency Alerts,’ click on that then set ‘allow alerts’ to ‘off.’

Of course, they may try to do a deal with the tech companies to override this if enough of us don’t respond, so Leggy may well be proved right and I wouldn’t put it past the bastards.

35 Comments

  1. I’m assuming this is a nod to dear Vladimir having his finger wavering over the big red button. Can’t see that it serves any other purpose.

    Plus, don’t we still have air raid sirens installed on council offices and the like?

    Ah. Apparently not. Presumably part of that “Peace Dividend” thing.

    DOES THE UK STILL HAVE AIR RAID SIRENS?
    The majority of air raid signals operated during the Cold War were dismantled during by the 1990s, which means that sirens are unlikely to be used as a warning if an attack occurs

  2. What happened to the breezes self identifying as Scary Storms with weird names?
    Aesop warned us about repeat Wolf Crying.
    The obvious purpose of the Alarm System is to ramp up the Climate Change/Emergency/Chaos/Disaster/Warmagghedon “We’re Doomed Ah Tell Ye, Doo-ooomed!”, give us your money, message, currently failing to impress.
    What they will not tell us will be that the banking system is crashing, get your money out now and buy Rubles.
    Or anything else that would cause panic and discomfit the real rulers.
    I do hope that the system gets hacked.
    PM’s questions or better still, a Budget Speech.
    Weeooh, weeooh, from every Honourable Member’s super, duper, best that expenses can buy, mobile. Even the Speaker’s.

  3. Presumably they chose St George’s Day rather than St Patrick’s Day to avoid hordes of panicked drunken fake Irishmen running amok and spilling their Guinness.

    I think I’ll leave mine switched on just to see what it sounds like then I’ll decide whether to keep it or not.

  4. “Just how many life threatening weather events or terror attacks do we get where this system might be even remotely useful?”

    Not as many as we will after they’ve tested the system.

    The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.

    – HL Mencken, In Defense Of Women.

  5. For Apple phones, go to Settings > Notifications, scroll right down to the bottom and turn off both “emergency alerts”.

    Not being the government’s property, I’m seriously considering going back to a non-smart phone.

    • But then you wont be able to use your ‘dumb’ mobile phone to pay for parking… many parking payment machines will be able to use only* mobile smart phones soon.

      Got you coming and going.

    • Simple on Apple phones. You have two alerts – ‘Emergency’ and ‘Severe’ which can be toggled on or off. Whether this does disable them is of course another thing.

  6. I dread to think how this is going to play out with our eighty- and ninety-something parents, who live some distance away and carry phones only because we’ve asked them to do so in case of emergencies – given the difficulty of explaining over the (land) phone how to open a text or listen to a voicemail, getting them to switch off alerts is definitely a non-starter.

      • With WhatsApping grandchildren scattered to the four winds, not to mention boarding passes for flights, Covid passes etc, and, in one case, a lifelong photography career, ours have all been kitted out with smartphones and instructions for the features they use on a regular basis.

        Most of the time things run smoothly; it’s the unexpected that causes problems – like when the GP surgery decides to shift all communication to texts. Mind you, they were tough enough to deal with air raids eighty years ago, which, I suspect, is more than you can say for a lot of their juniors…

  7. The BBC article states: “Phone users will have to acknowledge the alert before they can use other features on their devices.”

    Who does the acknowledgement go to? Is it to The Government, or just to our own mobile phone?

    I have always been totally against automatic acknowledgements. On email, they (at least) tell the phisher/hacker/other-baddy that their unsolicited email/attack has arrived at a real person’s actively viewed email address.

    If the alert requires acknowledging receipt to the sender (or Government central system), that is open to serious misuse. Not only ‘scaring’ each mobile phone user; but (in a real or test emergency) loading the mobile system with as many messages as there are mobile phones switched on in the area (or even country). This will very probably cause a total overload, similar to that of the 7/7/2005 London terrorist bombing – and that’s before anyone (or nearly everyone) tries to see whether there is a real problem, by accessing the WWW.

    Or am I just imagining this, because the government will have thought of all downsides to their new EMERGENCY WARNING SYSTEM. [Including as Leg Iron mentions unaware drivers who will probably stop at the first opportunity to check what is going on – which will massively increase road safety. :(( ]

    Anyway, I won’t be acknowledging receipt, just in case it does cause an overload, or enables phishing/hacking/other-bad. And if my phone is locked out of standard functioning, I’ll try a power-off reset first, second and third.

    Best regards

    • because the government will have thought of all downsides

      Hahahaha. You should try stand-up.

      And if my phone is locked out of standard functioning, I’ll try a power-off reset first, second and third.

      That would be my go-to if an alert did get through to me.

  8. If Vlad does hit the red button and you receive an alarm, what is it you are going to do? Hide under the stairs? I’d rather not know.

  9. I think the important factor is the, ‘you won’t be able to use your phone features without acknowledgement’. If they can successfully prove that with one message they can lock you (millions of others) out, then in future, that message can be anything they want. “Virus alert. Acknowledge here with your location (automatic), and enter previously sent vaccination code… use thumb print or other boimetric to confirm”. No jab, no phone use. Any government bully reason will do…

  10. My Android phone doesn’t have a setting for emergency alerts. I would switch it off if I could. Would it help to remove SIM card and battery and keep them apart for the day? When I put them back together will the alarm then sound? For how long will my potentially lifesaving phone be disabled? As for our glorious leaders thinking of all the downsides, I’m sure they have and think what a jolly wheeze it is.

    • Settings then search for emergency in the search box. Select ’emergency alerts’ and turn all options off. (Android10)

  11. “Just how many life threatening weather events or terror attacks do we get where this system might be even remotely useful?”

    Especially as most phones are hooked into numerous sources of information already. The systems for finding stuff out the instant things happen are already in place. No need for the government to get involved. Of course that last sentence can be applied to nearly everything.

  12. We had this when we lived in Texas. It went off once in two years but it was a tornado warning, fairly localised and a useful warning as tornadoes approach very quickly and there is little other warning. So, fine. But you just know UK authorities will use it for yellow snow, because there are few dangers here which require an immediate warning.

  13. Using android on a Sony device and no ‘safety and emergency’ anywhere in settings so won’t be able to follow your instructions. Not a problem as I had already decided to turn my phone off for the evening of the test

  14. Of course, such warnings could “trigger” the liquid nitrogen, sorry helium, IQ children in all sorts of ways.

    Probably be a few law suits on the way.

    Totally unexpected of course.

  15. Can’t find the turn off menu on my Android phone either, from the linked site it appears Android 11 or newer is needed, mine is 8, so like me too old and fed up of state bullshit to be bothered about any Putin Bad Man sirens sounding.

  16. My Android phone has version nine. It is so old that when my phone case fell to pieces I had to buy a universal one size fits all one as covers for it were no longer available.

  17. I’m not in the UK, but I turned the silly thing off anyway by going to ‘settings’-‘advanced settings’-and turned them all off.

    If humanity gets wiped out by a rogue asteroid you can tell me “I told you so.” afterwards.

  18. Nukes on the way! That gives me three minutes to empty the vodka bottle for emergency oblivion. Any other emergency can wait.

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