Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
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- Lemon Quarter
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Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
We've all heard about the test planned for the 23rd April, and I think it's a good idea. Like St George, it's nice to be warned that a dragon is approaching.
But some articles say that all functions on the phone will be blocked until you press a button to confirm that you've received it.
Is this true? How does it work? What if someone is out of the room and doesn't hear the alarm or just ignores it. Will their phone be blocked from receiving incoming calls??
Steve
But some articles say that all functions on the phone will be blocked until you press a button to confirm that you've received it.
Is this true? How does it work? What if someone is out of the room and doesn't hear the alarm or just ignores it. Will their phone be blocked from receiving incoming calls??
Steve
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
https://fullfact.org/online/emergency-phone-alert-gdpr/
Cont....On whether use of your phone will be limited, the Cabinet Office confirmed to Full Fact that phone calls won’t go to voicemail if you haven’t acknowledged the alert. It won’t stop a phone call in progress, and notifications will still come through. In order to answer a call or view notifications, however, you will first have to acknowledge the alert....
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
I'm still unsure as to quite what will happen if you are using a satnav app on your phone at the time.
Will you be required to let go of the wheel and acknowledge the alert for the satnav to continue working?
Will the display have a big button blocking visible directions until you acknowledge, though verbal directions continue?
I would think that these are things that ought to be considered, though it's possible that they have been, and we simply have not been told.
I am not however curious enough to run a satnav app at the appropriate time.
Will you be required to let go of the wheel and acknowledge the alert for the satnav to continue working?
Will the display have a big button blocking visible directions until you acknowledge, though verbal directions continue?
I would think that these are things that ought to be considered, though it's possible that they have been, and we simply have not been told.
I am not however curious enough to run a satnav app at the appropriate time.
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- Lemon Slice
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
Didn't know about this, just opted out as I'm not interested.
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
Not sure why UK residents need warning about a Dragon on the loose in Turkey.stevensfo wrote:We've all heard about the test planned for the 23rd April, and I think it's a good idea. Like St George, it's nice to be warned that a dragon is approaching.
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
But in those days, it was an up and coming Christian province, and was also before the Orthodox-Catholic schism (dontcha love the word schism? ) so St George was fair game for everyone who needed a patron saint.BobbyD wrote:Not sure why UK residents need warning about a Dragon on the loose in Turkey.stevensfo wrote:We've all heard about the test planned for the 23rd April, and I think it's a good idea. Like St George, it's nice to be warned that a dragon is approaching.
On a more serious note, although I like the idea of an alarm system, e.g. when Rees-Mogg has woken up, I feel rather uneasy about a system that can control your phone so you have to confirm receipt of a message before you're allowed to use it. To my mind, that's getting a bit Orwellian.
Steve
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
Schism is a great word. My favourite scism? Well, I can't hear 'Donatist schism' without picturing a group of religious men involved in heated ideological debate outside a kebab shop.stevensfo wrote:But in those days, it was an up and coming Christian province, and was also before the Orthodox-Catholic schism (dontcha love the word schism? ) so St George was fair game for everyone who needed a patron saint.BobbyD wrote:
Not sure why UK residents need warning about a Dragon on the loose in Turkey.
...nothing to do with English sailors being bullied by nasty pirates and paying Genoa for the right to hide beneath their flag then?
On topic: The opt out doesn't seem particularly arduous, although it wouldn't completely surprise me if they managed to bring the country grinding to a halt or brick everybody's phone.
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- Lemon Slice
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
I live in Scotland. Will I get a siren on St George's Day, or will the SNP delay it until St Andrew's Day
doolally
doolally
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
Darka wrote:Didn't know about this, just opted out as I'm not interested.
Ive not yet been able to ascertain what happens if the phone is turned off at the time.
does the alarm then go off when the phone is turned on?
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
How does one do this please?Darka wrote:Didn't know about this, just opted out as I'm not interested.
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
If you have a mobile phone, you're already firmly in Orwell territory (all the more so if it's a smartphone). Maybe they're doing you a favour by alerting you?stevensfo wrote: On a more serious note, although I like the idea of an alarm system, e.g. when Rees-Mogg has woken up, I feel rather uneasy about a system that can control your phone so you have to confirm receipt of a message before you're allowed to use it. To my mind, that's getting a bit Orwellian.
Red alert, red pill ...
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
Search for "Emergency alerts" in your phone settings, and switch them off.Mike4 wrote:How does one do this please?Darka wrote:Didn't know about this, just opted out as I'm not interested.
Scott.
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
The problem is that I can't think of a single occasion in my 55 years when such an alert would have been useful or appropriate. You can see weather worsening, terrorist threats would be more 'breaking news', and we've not had a Three Minute Warning. I bet TPTB having got the service would want to use it frequently enough for it to be another popup.
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
I wondered this, so did a web search.Mike4 wrote:How does one do this please?Darka wrote:Didn't know about this, just opted out as I'm not interested.
It seems that on my *Droid there are plenty of useful options, not just "opt out".
Here is a fairly useless link.
https://www.gov.uk/alerts/how-alerts-work
The bit that you are looking for is
"Search your settings for ‘emergency alerts’."
I have no idea where it is in my phones menu, but the search of the phone settings worked great.
I chose not to change any of the setting at this time, but might consider doing so in the future.
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
I'm sure if the people in the Eifel region of Germany who died in the 2021 flash floods had got a couple of minutes warning to move to higher ground and away from the danger areas the death toll would have been much lower.JohnB wrote:The problem is that I can't think of a single occasion in my 55 years when such an alert would have been useful or appropriate. You can see weather worsening, terrorist threats would be more 'breaking news', and we've not had a Three Minute Warning. I bet TPTB having got the service would want to use it frequently enough for it to be another popup.
One of the issues there though was that some of the cell towers got taken out along with ground based fibre and the utilities.
Satellite provision is needed for a truly redundant emergency system - I know the mobile companies have already or currently are cutting deals with the likes of Starlink and the other satellite providers. Starlink has mesh capability, so ground stations/fibre backhaul are less important (hence their usefulness in Ukraine...).
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
Of course we can recall news stories where warnings would helped. And I can think of a few instances where friends had close calls. But generally these things occur to other people. And like the Broadmoor siren tested every week when I lived in Wokingham, it was security theatre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadmoor_Sirens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadmoor_Sirens
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
I mostly agree; with a caveat that it would be really useful to be able to notify everyone in a specific location of <insert whatever>.JohnB wrote:Of course we can recall news stories where warnings would helped. And I can think of a few instances where friends had close calls. But generally these things occur to other people. And like the Broadmoor siren tested every week when I lived in Wokingham, it was security theatre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadmoor_Sirens
A kind of targeted, opt in by default, civil APB.
It doesn't need to be demonstrated periodically - but should be easily authenticated.
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
That's what I said, see above.Urbandreamer wrote:The bit that you are looking for is
"Search your settings for ‘emergency alerts’."
Scott.
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- The full Lemon
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
Even I have found under Notifications, 'Emergency Alerts'. two buttons, both switched on, Extreme Alerts and Severe Alerts.
Seems sensible to leave them on.
Dod
Seems sensible to leave them on.
Dod
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- Lemon Slice
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Re: Emergency siren to all mobile phones on St George's Day?
The problem with the alerts is that once the Government (of any persuasion) has gained a liking for them, they will start to use them for other, less serious emergencies, and do you really trust the government to have your best interests at heart..
I prefer to make my own choices and to suffer my own consequences.
Imagine an emergency alert, "disaster, please go <here>" then having huge crowds of panicking people turn up at some preordained location, what could possibly go wrong.....
I prefer to make my own choices and to suffer my own consequences.
Imagine an emergency alert, "disaster, please go <here>" then having huge crowds of panicking people turn up at some preordained location, what could possibly go wrong.....