The test of the new phone alert system this weekend comes after learning from earlier experiences – and the warning strategies of other nations
There have been accusations of nanny statism, warnings from domestic abuse charities over inadvertently alerting abusers to hidden phones, and even pet shops cordoning off smaller animals so they don’t get frightened when the government’s emergency alert system is tested on Sunday at 3pm.
When it first decided to send out an emergency alert in the first weeks of the national lockdown, it was forced to turn to mobile networks for help. Repurposing systems designed for adverts and service updates, the networks churned through users’ phone numbers sequentially, sending out tens of thousands of messages every minute.
The alerts were further limited by the technology of SMS messages, a decades-old service hacked together by Nokia engineers to hide text in the crevices of the wireless protocol that underpinned early mobiles: text only, limited to 160 characters and with no way of distinguishing between a legitimate sender and a conman.
. “The system would be an effective way of getting people to take specific protective action during an emergency. Whilst a significant challenge, there was consensus that it was possible to issue alerts to the public within 15 minutes of a decision being made.”
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