Public emergency alert - being sent to your phone

[dundarach]

[Biker 1]

CoolHands said:

More belittling. There’s been no event in my lifetime that we need a warning about, or that had we received one would’ve made any difference to anything. It’s hot. It’s cold. There’s flooding. Don’t tell me, some old granny somewhere has probably died in a flood, even in the uk - this would have saved her?

This.
Having seen the utterly obscene amount of ££££ flushed down the toilet by Dido Harding et al over the last couple of years, this is why people get so angry about yet another government initiative to answer a problem that doesn't exist, taking years to implement.
We are not like Japan where a tsunami warning could be useful. Can anyone tell me what genuine emergency the phone alert might avert here in the UK?

[Elysium]

Disastrous said:

bhstewie said:

surveyor said:

I am stunned to be reading so many replies by complete and total idiots. Perhaps I should not be in NP&E.

Is there potential to bring valuable information to the general public? Yep.

Could the government perhaps overuse the system? Yep.

What happens if it annoys you? Turn it off. What happens if it does not and you leave it switched on? Absolutely nothing.

Is it a big deal? Nope!

Quite.

Easy way and hard way.

Some people always do things the hard way.

Whilst I sort of agree it’s no big deal, I think it’s perhaps more useful to think about how we’ve ended up in a situation where confidence in our leadership is so low that this many people are annoyed by what they perceive as further state over-reach?

This is the key point here. I have no idea why some people are annoyed that others are annoyed by this. Surely its more interesting to find out why they are annoyed?

I’ve turned this off, because the use of this sort of technology feels increasingly like something from Black Mirror.

[csd19]

768 said:

over_the_hill said:

How selective will it be ?
Warnings of potential floods in Inverness are not that relevant if you live in Croydon.

The climate emergency affects everyone's wallet

FTFY

[BoRED S2upid]

bhstewie said:

Is there anything people won't lose their st about?

Just a country of moaners. Instead of thinking can I turn this nonsense off first it’s I should complain to the internet.

[Sway]

CoolHands said:

RizzoTheRat said:

the tin foil hatters

More belittling. There’s been no event in my lifetime that we need a warning about, or that had we received one would’ve made any difference to anything. It’s hot. It’s cold. There’s flooding. Don’t tell me, some old granny somewhere has probably died in a flood, even in the uk - this would have saved her?

I would think that a fair few lives might have been saved back in the day when the IRA rang through a coded message - and police had to try to evacuate 'manually'.

Of course, if you're right - then by the criteria being applied there'll never be a warning sent out.

[Megaflow]

CoolHands said:

RizzoTheRat said:

the tin foil hatters

More belittling. There’s been no event in my lifetime that we need a warning about, or that had we received one would’ve made any difference to anything. It’s hot. It’s cold. There’s flooding. Don’t tell me, some old granny somewhere has probably died in a flood, even in the uk - this would have saved her?

What he said. There has been no event in my lifetime where this system would have given me information that would have been useful.

Places like Japan, Indonesia, pacific bowl, USA, etc where they can get tsunami, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc, yes definitely useful.

U.K., will be warned about a bit of rain, snow or wind that is classed as normal everywhere else.

The reason they have started to names storms is because people stopped paying attention to weather warnings, the reason people stopped paying attention was because they issue one just about everyday, the boy who cried wolf and all that.

As an aside, it occurred to me recently that the U.K. tax burden appears to be as high as it has ever been, weather it actually is not or not I couldn’t say, but it certainly feels that way. So I had a look. U.K. tax revenue for 2021/2022 was £715.5 billion, I looked further back and found in 1999/2000, a time when I don’t recall us suffering so badly with appalling public services and the tax burden was only £294.2 billion.

Out of interest I put the £294.2 billion through the Bank of England inflation calculator to bring that up to 2021/2022 and it came out at only £492.5 billion, a 45% increase above inflation…



That all comes out of the pocket of the electorate, given corporation tax comes from the money that companies make buy selling to the public, even that comes from the electorate.

The U.K. working population is 32.84 million people, that makes the total tax burden per electorate at £21.8k per person. That is ridiculous given the state of public services and they are wasting it on crap like this.

[Louis Balfour]

Disastrous said:

bhstewie said:

surveyor said:

I am stunned to be reading so many replies by complete and total idiots. Perhaps I should not be in NP&E.

Is there potential to bring valuable information to the general public? Yep.

Could the government perhaps overuse the system? Yep.

What happens if it annoys you? Turn it off. What happens if it does not and you leave it switched on? Absolutely nothing.

Is it a big deal? Nope!

Quite.

Easy way and hard way.

Some people always do things the hard way.

Whilst I sort of agree it’s no big deal, I think it’s perhaps more useful to think about how we’ve ended up in a situation where confidence in our leadership is so low that this many people are annoyed by what they perceive as further state over-reach?

This.

It was my children who told me it was happening. Then they asked "what are they up to, isn't this a bit unnerving?"

I can confirm that my children don't wear tin foil hats, wet the bed or moan (excessively anyway). They are just learning already to question everything the government does and assuming they are up to something. Perhaps it was COVID management that did it.

[Elysium]

Louis Balfour said:

Disastrous said:

bhstewie said:

surveyor said:

I am stunned to be reading so many replies by complete and total idiots. Perhaps I should not be in NP&E.

Is there potential to bring valuable information to the general public? Yep.

Could the government perhaps overuse the system? Yep.

What happens if it annoys you? Turn it off. What happens if it does not and you leave it switched on? Absolutely nothing.

Is it a big deal? Nope!

Quite.

Easy way and hard way.

Some people always do things the hard way.

Whilst I sort of agree it’s no big deal, I think it’s perhaps more useful to think about how we’ve ended up in a situation where confidence in our leadership is so low that this many people are annoyed by what they perceive as further state over-reach?

This.

It was my children who told me it was happening. Then they asked "what are they up to?"

I can confirm that my children don't wear tin foil hats, wet the bed or moan (excessively anyway). They are just learning already to question everything the government does. Perhaps it was COVID management that did it.

Good parenting.

Everyone should teach their children to question authority.

[xx99xx]

Biker 1 said:

This.
Having seen the utterly obscene amount of ££££ flushed down the toilet by Dido Harding et al over the last couple of years, this is why people get so angry about yet another government initiative to answer a problem that doesn't exist, taking years to implement.
We are not like Japan where a tsunami warning could be useful. Can anyone tell me what genuine emergency the phone alert might avert here in the UK?

Category 1 responders have a legal duty under the civil contingencies act to warn and inform the public of potential/actual emergencies. There may have been very few incidents in the past where emergency alerts would've been useful but this is just basic emergency planning for future events, keeping up with modern technology.

The alerts are mostly aimed at risk to life incidents such as industrial/environmental accidents (e.g. release of gas, chemical, radiation etc), severe weather (e.g. hurricane, flooding - deep/fast flowing water in populated areas etc), public health incidents (e.g. COVID lockdown is in effect etc) and terrorist attacks (e.g. stay away from x area, don't travel etc).

The alerts don't stop the incidents from happening but they can inform the public to make a decision about any action they might wish to take/not take.

Sure, if you live in a high rise block you might not be too concerned about flooding, but it may knock your power/water off so possibly useful to be prepared. Most people will find out about emergencies from being aware of the news, social media etc but a lot of people aren't so these alerts are aimed at those people.

[anonymoususer]

BananaFama said:

I "unsubscribed " to smart phones couple of years ago ,I'll just carry on regardless .
Ignorance is bliss

And i can totally get that but..................
Many things seem to rely to a massive degree on an app. You can ring customer service issue and somewhere in the conversation the line "have you got our app" pops up.
If you read up about car parks many are supposedly junking their pay and display machines and moving to apps.

[Biggy Stardust]

xx99xx said:

Category 1 responders have a legal duty under the civil contingencies act to warn and inform the public of potential/actual emergencies.

The fact that they passed a law to necessitate this bullst doesn't justify this bullst. Repeal or modify the act.

xx99xx said:

There may have been very few incidents in the past where emergency alerts would've been useful but this is just basic emergency planning for future events, keeping up with modern technology.

Or the untrustworthy intrerfering bds could just leave me alone.

xx99xx said:

The alerts are mostly aimed at risk to life incidents such as industrial/environmental accidents (e.g. release of gas, chemical, radiation etc), severe weather (e.g. hurricane, flooding - deep/fast flowing water in populated areas etc), public health incidents (e.g. COVID lockdown is in effect etc) and terrorist attacks (e.g. stay away from x area, don't travel etc).

Guarantee me it won't be abused in the way that eg RIPA & covid rules were. (You can't.)

[Timothy Bucktu]

Biker 1 said:

We are not like Japan where a tsunami warning could be useful. Can anyone tell me what genuine emergency the phone alert might avert here in the UK?

Protest against the government is nearby = ping
Temperature in summer goes over +30 degrees = ping
Temperature in winter goes below -5 = ping
It's a bit windy = ping
You haven't had your next jab = ping
You ventured beyond your 15 minute neighbourhood = ping
Your social credit score dropped below average = ping

You know...the usual stuff the MSM likes to scare your granny with (and the majority of the sheeple) and the stuff coming soon.

[Biggy Stardust]

Timothy Bucktu said:

Protest against the government is nearby = ping
Temperature in summer goes over +30 degrees = ping
Temperature in winter goes below -5 = ping
It's a bit windy = ping
You haven't had your next jab = ping
You ventured beyond your 15 minute neighbourhood = ping
Your social credit score dropped below average = ping

You know...the usual stuff the MSM likes to scare your granny with (and the majority of the sheeple) and the stuff coming soon.

It might even be financed by advertising.

[oyster]

Biggy Stardust said:

Getragdogleg said:

Turned off in settings on my phone.

Stupid idea put in place by stupid people who think that they are "doing something".

Utterly unnecessary and all part of the pushed narrative that the government will keep us safe.

I wouldn't trust them to run a bath, I certainly don't trust them to not eventually turn this into a system to control us more.

Same here.

Are they so out of touch that they don't realise the contempt in which their actions & interference are held?

Except that perhaps 95% of the population won't give a crap whether they receive an alert or not. And I'm willing to bet that there's more people want such an alert than don't want such an alert.

I'm not in favour of the system, I think it's nannying. But it's you and I out of touch here, not them. We're in the small minority.

[768]

BoRED S2upid said:

Just a country of moaners. Instead of thinking can I turn this nonsense off first it’s I should complain to the internet.

How much of the tax spend does that save?

[vulture1]

So who's going to make a ringtone of the warning sound just to freak other people out?

[Biggy Stardust]

[GSE]

Disastrous said:

Whilst I sort of agree it’s no big deal, I think it’s perhaps more useful to think about how we’ve ended up in a situation where confidence in our leadership is so low that this many people are annoyed by what they perceive as further state over-reach?

Why would any rational person believe anything that they say anymore? Covid has been proven to be lies, coercion, and backhanders for those in charge.

Let's hope that they don't start an Orson Welles War of the Worlds panic when they test it!

[sospan]

I will be interested into how it will be used. What will be the criteria for triggering an alert and what area it will cover.
Currently I see weather forecasts that show general weather and occasional warnings of extreme conditions. These have served me well to date. I can see a use in some localities that could be affected by some incidents. The collapsing dam incident a couple of years ago to warn those in the risk zone. Cumbria, I think. I wouldn’t need it here in West Wales though.
The Tywi valley near here does get floods after persistent heavy rain. Fields adjacent to the river were under water last week. Not an isolated event and repeats. Local farmers know when likely due to experience.
Some areas up in the hills get snow/ice regularly and roads get closed. Weather forecasts warn of the likelihood and locals will know what to expect anyway.
So I can see benefits for limited situations for really unexpected incidents. It will be interesting to see frequency and the reasons for alerts. I hope we won’t be bombarded by overuse for non necessary alerts. Who in authority has the b***s to stand up to doom mongers and nannies to tell them that their opinions on what deserves an alert using this system is overkill and inappropriate?
It has the potential to be useful if not overdone (crying wolf) and resulting in non-emergency false alarms.
I fear Jobsworths and chinless idiots will be to the fore! Justifying their jobs.
I am leaving it switched on out of curiosity. The pub might be an entertaining place to be during the test!

Edited by sospan on Wednesday 22 March 21:05