Is this a joke?
Now this is just plain weird.
A new European directive will make it mandatory for EU citizens and visitors to receive official alerts directly to their mobile phones during large emergencies.
Mandatory to receive messages? I can be arrested for not checking my phone for texts? Can I be arrested if my battery runs down or I forget to switch the yoke on?
This is bananas gone mad.
Will I be obliged by law to register my phone number with them? They can stick that one up their arse for starters.
I am assuming that the system somehow sends an alert from a particular tower [or towers] to all mobiles within range, but even that doesn’t guarantee that I [or anyone else] will receive them. Reception around here is quirky at best yet it will be mandatory for me to receive them whether or not I can even get a signal?
Now our Glorious Leaders love emergencies. A bit of a wind or a flurry of snowflakes has them frantically running in circles, calling press conferences and telling us in breathless voices that we are in imminent danger of Armageddon. I presume then we will get a stream of these fucking texts telling us to do the obvious. “It’s raining. Stay indoors!” or “It’s snowing. Stay indoors and keep warm!“
Fucking idiots.
I’ll just switch off my phone.
We recently got a taste of this here in The US. Back in early October, we all got a “Presidential Alert”, I assume via the same “Amber Alert System” that is used here in The US for missing children. No warning, no nothing, just an ominous “Presidential Alert” suddenly appearing on our phones under the guise of “the is just a test”.
What made this “Presidential Alert” even more strange, is that I got an alert on a cellphone that is disconnected/has no service. I keep it charged because it’s a smartphone that I use for other stuff, and it still got an alert. Granted that here in America, 911 emergency services will still work on a disconnected phone, but that’s outbound…not inbound.
/shrug
“Will I be obliged by law to register my phone number”.
You did that yesterday in that rebate scam.
No. It never got as far as saving it before I quit.
Official thinking. They make it YOUR responsibility to receive their ‘alerts’ not just their responsibility to send them, it’s just another way to make sure the population (ie us lot) is kept in check by (albeit in a trivial way) adding to the number of things which must be done.
“…and visitors.”
How’s that going to work? Will they demand you give them your mobile number at Departures?
Sorry GD, with this one they’re doing good. Reason I say this is they’ve had exactly this type of alert in Japan fo yonks now.
Of course they have very frequent seismic activity and some of it is miles offshore, but will result in high waves. They can give a good 15 minute warning now, meaning people have time to get to higher ground.
If the proposed system is used correctly, it can warn of impending flooding, snow drifts, road closures and so on. Mostly these are issues in mainland Europe.
Of course they know some people don’t have mobiles and some will be switched off, however it’s a straight across the board; doesn’t matter which network, the warning goes to every mobile in that area, or nationwide.
No they will not need your phone number, you do nothing. And you’re free to ignore any warning, but my gut tells me it’s got to do with these hellish floods they’ve been getting. It gives people downstream the chance to get the hell out.
Smoking Scot – I fear you are missing a point? To create an alert system for emergencies could obviously be a good thing. It’s the wording – making it mandatory for people to receive it – that opens up a can of worms. We live in a society where commerce and the authorities have an appalling reputation for finding loopholes in the rules and for misusing their powers in ways unforseen and unintendedwhen the powers were granted. That ‘mandatory receive’ could easily grow over time to mean you must always carry a phone so you can be bombarded with state nannying propaganda.
That is precisely my point. If they made it mandatory for emergency services to send texts then that’s one thing, but to make it mandatory to receive them is a different kettle of stingrays altogether. By implication they are saying I have to have my phone powered up and with me at all times otherwise I will be breaking their law.
Just as importantly, must you now by law own a mobile phone? They charge VAT for the purchase and VAT on all calls made.
Going by the strict letter of the law, it would appear so.
During large emergencies? What about not-so-large emergencies? Just another reason for me not to ever purchase a so-called “smart” phone. I’ll just stick with my old dumb (non-text-enabled) cell phone until I’m forced to give it up.
Send all they want I have no mobile phone, nor landline for that matter. Silly buggers.
Some are old enough to remember the air-raid warning sirens – you didn’t get a choice whether you ‘received’ that broadcast message, but you had a choice whether you heeded it or not. Using broadcast SMS is simply a smarter way of doing the same thing – if only those in charge of it were smarter too.