CTV News:
Canada’s wireless providers are preparing for a looming update to the National Public Alerting System that will force smartphones to sound an ominous alarm when an emergency alert is triggered.
In case of emergencies including Amber Alerts, forest fires, natural disasters, terrorist attacks or severe weather, officials will be able to send a localized alert that will compel compatible phones on an LTE network to emit an alarm — the same shrill beeping that accompanies TV and radio emergency alerts — and display a bilingual text warning.
I really hate the idea of there not being any ability to opt out of at least some of these alerts. I certainly won’t need an alert that an earthquake is happening – I’m pretty sure I’ll already know.
Where I live (in Texas), I get ear-splitting “flood alerts” whenever there’s a heavy rain. I don’t live near low-lying regions, and flooding just never happens here. But if I turn off the weather alarms, I miss the tornado alerts, and I WANT to hear those. Oh well.
I’m not opposed to these being mandatory, but the explanation for it is obviously false.
“In case of emergencies including Amber Alerts, forest fires, natural disasters, terrorist attacks or severe weather, officials will be able to send a localized alert that will compel compatible phones on an LTE network to emit an alarm — the same shrill beeping that accompanies TV and radio emergency alerts — and display a bilingual text warning.”
And:
“When you’re getting those alerts your life is at risk,” Tanguy said. “So it’s not there’s potentially a danger, there is a danger.”
“I certainly won’t need an alert that an earthquake is happening – I’m pretty sure I’ll already know.”
Yes, but you may not be so acutely aware of an approaching Tsunami, especially if you are in unfamiliar territory.
And if they ever implement the Earthquake Early Warning System, you would hopefully get notifications of imminent shaking – enough time to take cover and hold on.
After an earthquake, there is aftershock possible, Thus the alert make sense to warn people.
By the way, i presume that only important earthquake will be annonced by this system such as Magnitude 6.5 and higher
LOL Considering where I live and the likelihood of a tsunami, trust me – I’ll already know. 🙂
Perhaps but, as I said, I’ll know about the earthquake long before the alert can kick in. And, when that happens, I’ll also be aware of aftershocks.
“…i presume that only…” You presumption isn’t a fact from anything I’ve read.
Exactly. “…your life is at risk…” Not from an Amber Alert it’s not. Their arguments for it to be mandatory are silly.
In the US, both Amber Alerts and Emergency Alerts can be turned off. There is a third type of alert that CANNOT be turned off, and that’s an Emergency Action Notification, which can only be issued by the President or a designate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Action_Notification
It’s possible that the alerts they’re saying can’t be turned off are similar to these, but that Amber Alerts and Emergency Alerts can still be disabled. That said, I don’t know anything about Canada’s equivalent to the Emergency Broadcast System, so they may have different ideas about it.
Yes, they do. As I said and as the article makes clear, these will be mandatory alerts across the board – no opt outs.
Welp. Sucks to be Canadian. ?
Still, I need a couch to stay on if the next election goes further south, so let me know how annoying the alerts are and I’ll decide which is worse: the erosion of democracy or emergency alerts you can’t turn off (although, to be fair, I think we’ve only ever had about 3-5 a year since implemented and all but one of them was an Amber Alert).
I live 300 meters south of a fault line and 500 metres north of a thrust line. I don’t need no stinking emergency alert joy buzzer to tell me that the cat is about to shit himself.
We have had these for awhile, and they can provide the critical moments you need to get to safety. Here we deal primarily with earthquakes and typhoons, but they don’t emit an alarm, just an alert.
LOL Exactly. I have no problem with these alerts. My problem is with not being able to opt out of them.
Yeah, I’ll keep my impossible to mute alarm and you guys can keep your… perpetual train wreck. 🙂
That’s a concern of mine, as well. How localized will these alerts be?
And, while the article says, “If a smartphone is turned off it cannot be forced on by an alert. Similarly, if a smartphone is muted an alert cannot force the device to play the alarm”, but does that mean DnD will be bypassed?
The problem is, “unlikely” isn’t “won’t”. The government isn’t being clear on the parameters.
The parameters for Amber Alerts are pretty clear already.
I’ve noticed GeoLocation is… not great. i’m not convinced it’ll improve a lot, but we’ll see.
I’m going to be totally pissed the first time an Amber Alert for Kelowna pushes through DND and wakes me at 2am.
It’s not like I’m going to find the missing kid in my Abbotsford apartment, guys.
Unlikely a Kelowna alert would be broadcast to Abbotsford, unless there was evidence the abductor was travelling in that direction.
Also unlikely to broadcast an Amber Alert at 2 AM either, as there are insufficient watchful eyes to make it effective.
In the past 12 years in my current location, we have yet to see such an alert on our TV, so I expect few coming to my cell phone, unless I travel to that Tsunami zone on the coast! 🙂