New FCC Rules Will Require Wireless Companies To Deliver Emergency Alerts More Accurately (recode.net)

The Federal Communications Commission voted Tuesday to update the country's wireless emergency alert system, aiming to ensure that local officials only sound alarms on Americans' smartphones when those citizens are truly in harm's way. From a report: The system, implemented in 2012, allows first responders around the country to dispatch short, loud, text-message-like bulletins to warn mobile users about inclement weather, abducted children or criminals at large. But public-safety leaders long have complained the alerts are inaccurate, rendering it difficult to use them in times of disaster without creating undue panic. And they fret that "over-alerting" has proven so frustrating to smartphone owners that they've simply turned off the alarms entirely -- rendering it even more difficult to communicate in times of an emergency.

Comments

Legislation to the rescue!

[nimbius]

FCC: you must deliver alerts more accurately, no more blanket warnings for random weather events and such.
Wireless company: You mean like the random false alarm for thermonuclear war that was issued by the government?
FCC: ...no see thats different..
Wireless company: or the hundreds of random Amber alerts we're made to issue every year in the bold, misplaced strategy of assuming the average taxpayer will suit up like Ironman and save the day?
FCC:...ok, thats probably not..
Wireless company: Or what about these blue alerts you keep talking about, the ones we might have to issue if theres imminent threat to law enforcement, a career with by its very definition an inherent and indelible risk that no alert will mitigate?

Re:Ajit Pai

[SlaveToTheGrind]

My god -- it's all true! He's personally targeted you and limited your posts to 14 characters. That must be why this is just about the only thing you post anymore. But maybe we can still communicate nonetheless. Can you post it once for "yes" and twice in an row for "no"? Hope springs eternal....

Re:Not going to stop the REAL Alerts

[Hal_Porter]

The employee who did that didn't even get fired either, just assigned to another job pending an investigation.

http://time.com/5103320/hawaii...

Richard Rapoza, spokesman for the Hawaii Emergency Management System, confirmed that the employee was temporarily moved to a new role, NBC News reports. However, he declined to say what the worker's new tasks are.

"All we will say is that the individual has been temporarily reassigned within our Emergency Operations Center pending the outcome of our internal investigation, and it is currently in a role that does not provide access to the warning system," Rapoza said.

People across Hawaii received an emergency alert on Saturday warning them to seek immediate shelter for a ballistic missile threat coming to the state. "This is not a drill," the alert said, causing immediate terror.

And they've refused to co-operate with an FCC inquiry into what went wrong, even though the Hawaii EMA said it was hoping they would cooperate and was encouraging them to do so.

http://time.com/5119618/hawaii...

The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said Thursday it hoped its employee-who has already been reassigned-would decide to cooperate with the investigation.

"We share FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Lisa Fowlkes's disappointment. The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency has encouraged its employees to cooperate in all ongoing investigations, and while each individual makes a personal choice, we hope anyone who is not cooperating will reconsider and help to bring these matters to a satisfactory conclusion," Richard Rapoza, the agency's public information officer, said in a statement.

Despite the employee's lack of cooperation, Fowlkes said the FCC's investigation has made progress. She told to the Senate committee that officials in Hawaii have begun to change their procedures to ensure a similar mistake does not happen again.

"The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tells us that is working with its vendor to integrate additional technical safeguards into its alert origination software, and has changed its protocols to require two individuals to sign off on the transmission of tests and live alerts," she told the committee.

You have to wonder what it would take to get fired if you work for a government agency in Hawaii.

Re:Yes

[sabri]

Same thing here. While in Socal I got Norcal amber alerts because of my 408 number (wild guess). I turned all of that shit off until they figure out how to differentiate between a real emergency and a mehrgency.

Already broken because of Amber & Silver alert

[Aqualung812]

I've talked to so many people that have already disabled emergency alerts simply because they were awoken in the middle of the night with a amber or silver alert.

Emergency alerts to phones need to be ONLY for things that require immediate action by the phone's owner regardless if awake or asleep.

Things like public awareness notices can be sent over SMS and the phone's built-in logic can decide if the user wants to get those in the middle of the night.