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New UK emergency alert system discussion

jon81uk said:
In the US the system is used a lot more for things that some people see as emergencies but aren’t really. I was at Orlando airport waiting to depart and the siren noise went off on almost everyone’s phones (mine included) and the alert was for a missing child. Which in my opinion isn’t enough of an emergency to warrant use.
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A rather subjective opinion maybe, but if it was your child, in a county that has had it's fair share of abductions and murders, maybe your opinion might be different?

Even in a country like the UK - I see that type of alert as a good thing. A great thing in fact. My opinion on the matter is to follow.

If a child or a person was missing / suspected of being abducted, the system is effectively and efficiently alerting everyone in the area. I am sure many people would be on the immediate look out. In genuine abductions, time is a critical factor and you would want as many people to be on the lookout for that type of thing as soon as reasonably possible, this system helps to very effectively solve that problem. History has taught us that when someone is actually abducted and they leave the area, the consequences are for a lot of the cases, diabolical and awful.

So yeah, to me, it is an emergency in the sense that if it were a genuine abduction, there is an emergency by means of an immediate time critical window, that would be rapidly closing, which could help prevent something much worse from happening. Once that window has passed, it can be much, much more difficult to locate the person and locate them safe.

Anything to mitigate and help combat that would get the thumbs up from me.

It doesn't matter if it is helping to save many lives in a single incident, or a single life in a single incident if you ask me.
 
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DistortAMG said:
A rather subjective opinion maybe, but if it was your child, in a county that has had it's fair share of abductions and murders, maybe your opinion might be different?

Even in a country like the UK - I see that type of alert as a good thing. A great thing in fact. My opinion on the matter is to follow.

If a child or a person was missing / suspected of being abducted, the system is effectively and efficiently alerting everyone in the area. I am sure many people would be on the immediate look out. In genuine abductions, time is a critical factor and you would want as many people to be on the lookout for that type of thing as soon as reasonably possible, this system helps to very effectively solve that problem. History has taught us that when someone is actually abducted and they leave the area, the consequences are for a lot of the cases, diabolical and awful.

So yeah, to me, it is an emergency in the sense that if it were a genuine abduction, there is an emergency by means of an immediate time critical window, that would be rapidly closing, which could help prevent something much worse from happening. Once that window has passed, it can be much, much more difficult to locate the person and locate them safe.

Anything to mitigate and help combat that would get the thumbs up from me.

It doesn't matter if it is helping to save many lives in a single incident, or a single life in a single incident if you ask me.
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While I agree that a child abduction is an awful situation for that family, it won’t lead to the potential for mass loss of life that the situations the UK government would use the emergency alerts in, so I was using it as an example of a “looser” definition of emergency compared to what the UK government has set out.
 
If you started using it for things like missing persons it will be an inundated system in constant use. People will start to get fed up with the alert sound and start ignoring it. It could be used in rare cases where it may be known a child/person has been captured by an individual, but in most cases, I honestly don't believe the British public will care, it will simply become an annoying sound on their phone.

I think the UK government's intentions are right with this one. Perhaps in future, it could expand but I feel it needs to be a rare system used.
 
If it’s a system that pings once or twice in a lifetime for really serious situations then it might have a value I’ll agree with that.

If it pings every time Mrs Jones cat goes missing then forget it.
 
It's also worth noting that AMBER alerts are an entirely different category of alert in the US and can be disabled separately:
SPFf2Q2RiWe7kvp2rdLKz4-1920-80.jpg.webp

The AMBER alert system is far more wide ranging than just updates on phones in the USA too. Road signs, TV alerts etc are also used. I think it's a tad outdated for the UK to be using these days, especially with how densely populated the UK is in comparison the USA, not to mention the higher level of stuff like ANPR and no state lines to worry about either.

In any case, the only categories in the UK are Extreme and Severe alerts - both which will only be used when there is a danger to life nearby. As others have pointed out, the system will be used sparingly. The more people are interrupted by these things, the more likely they are to switch it off. That's not what the government and emergency services want to happen. If the government really wanted to chuck adverts at people, there are far better and effective methods of doing so away from the small amount of text and a website link that this will offer.

Look at the planning that's gone into the test alone - moving the initial time to avoid the football for example, the media campaign to inform people it's happening. They know the alerts are a potential inconvenience, so they're not going to suddenly be thrown out left right and centre. I'd be willing to bet you'll be able to count on one hand the number that are sent out in the space of 5 years.
 
Yes, which is why domestic abuse victims with secret 2nd phones are being advised to turn them off for the test, rather than leave them on silent.
 
Craig said:
It's also worth noting that AMBER alerts are an entirely different category of alert in the US and can be disabled separately:

The AMBER alert system is far more wide ranging than just updates on phones in the USA too. Road signs, TV alerts etc are also used. I think it's a tad outdated for the UK to be using these days, especially with how densely populated the UK is in comparison the USA, not to mention the higher level of stuff like ANPR and no state lines to worry about either.
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aha I was wondering whether the other alerts I've got in the US fitted into extreme or severe (the two options in the UK) and hadn't realised they had entirely different categories over there, only that the alerts were a lot more common than the proposals in the UK state.

Still don't know which is worse, extreme or severe? I assume severe is worse, but extreme sounds quite extreme too.
 
jon81uk said:
aha I was wondering whether the other alerts I've got in the US fitted into extreme or severe (the two options in the UK) and hadn't realised they had entirely different categories over there, only that the alerts were a lot more common than the proposals in the UK state.

Still don't know which is worse, extreme or severe? I assume severe is worse, but extreme sounds quite extreme too.
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Yup they're all decided by each country's governments and implemented by the operating system developers.

In terms of which is worst, it's the other way round - severe is the lower of the two extreme is the top.
 
I have the feeling I will be in the house alone this afternoon. Which will give me the excuse to shout "alarm!!" In a poor German accent.

Because I'm hilarious, when I'm on my own.
 
I can’t wait for the test to take place just so that the absolute knuckleheads on social media stop complaining about it and move on to the next stupid thing to complain about.

The latest on social media now is that the government has secretly enabled the notifications on iOS that you can disable again:

IMG_8041.jpeg

Except if anyone used a single brain cell to compute that these are the settings for the “Home” app on iOS that is used for smart home applications.

Yup.. they are disabling alerts from potential smart home devices such as smoke alarms, house alarms or other smart devices.

So let’s just get on with it and get it over and done with so the idiots can move onto moaning about something else again 🙄

Oh… and let’s be grateful we’re not in the state of Florida who mandates that the EAS (emergency alert system) tests must be done between the hours of 8pm - sunrise every other month, leading to an EAS test at 4:50am this month. Hah 😂
 
DistortAMG said:
A rather subjective opinion maybe, but if it was your child, in a county that has had it's fair share of abductions and murders, maybe your opinion might be different?

Even in a country like the UK - I see that type of alert as a good thing. A great thing in fact. My opinion on the matter is to follow.

If a child or a person was missing / suspected of being abducted, the system is effectively and efficiently alerting everyone in the area. I am sure many people would be on the immediate look out. In genuine abductions, time is a critical factor and you would want as many people to be on the lookout for that type of thing as soon as reasonably possible, this system helps to very effectively solve that problem. History has taught us that when someone is actually abducted and they leave the area, the consequences are for a lot of the cases, diabolical and awful.

So yeah, to me, it is an emergency in the sense that if it were a genuine abduction, there is an emergency by means of an immediate time critical window, that would be rapidly closing, which could help prevent something much worse from happening. Once that window has passed, it can be much, much more difficult to locate the person and locate them safe.

Anything to mitigate and help combat that would get the thumbs up from me.

It doesn't matter if it is helping to save many lives in a single incident, or a single life in a single incident if you ask me.
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I agree and 30 years ago James Bulger could be still here now if this sort of system was around (I know not many had phones 30 years ago) but it would help if it saves lives.
 
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