LISTEN out at 3pm on Sunday as a brand new emergency alert will blast from phones across the UK for the first time.
It’s just a test run, so there’s nothing to worry about.
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But there’s been a lot of speculation and misinformation about what the message does and how it does it.
Experts from Full Fact have debunked some of the biggest falsehoods about it.
“We have seen multiple instances in which bad information about the emergency alert has already been shared thousands of times online,” said Pippa Allen-Kinross, News and Online Editor at Full Fact.
“Be careful what you share on social media.
“Misinformation about this alert may lead to unnecessary alarm, and in some instances, may even cause people to opt out of future alerts (as many online have claimed they already have) based on incorrect information.”
The emergency alert does NOT access your personal data
When used for real emergencies, the alert will be used to warn people of serious life threatening situations in a specific area – for example, a local flood.
There has been some questions about how the Government knows how to contact people in the right place.
Well, the alert is sent out to relevant cell towers in the area affected which will then broadcast it to phones within its reach.
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Therefore, the Government doesn’t need to know your exact location or phone number to send the alert.
And the Cabinet Office has told Full Fact that no personal data is collected by the alert either.
It’s NOT a text you need to reply to
The alert will not come up like a text message.
Instead it’s a notification much like the one you see when the battery is running low on your smartphone.
Therefore, it’s not something you can reply to like a text message either.
The Cabinet Office has said that phone calls won’t go to voicemail if you haven’t acknowledged the alert and the alert won’t stop a phone call in progress.
Other notifications will also still come through to your phone as normal.
However, in order to answer a call or view notifications, you will need to acknowledge the alert.
Emergency Alerts WON’T match personal data with information collected during the pandemic
Posts on social media have claimed the emergency alert system will allow personal data to be collected, and that’ll be matched with data collected when people signed into venues during the Covid-19 pandemic – but this is not true.
The Government website described the system as “one-way”.
As the alert doesn’t collect any data, it can’t match up to anything else.
The emergency alert test does NOT breach GDPR
Another false claim on social media suggests that the alert breaches GDPR rules.
Again, as your phone number remains unknown and no data is taken, it is not possible for a data breach to happen.
The alert is NOT an “activation signal” to activate a “pathogen in the shot”
One of the more concerning falsehoods to appear online is that the alert acts as an “activation signal” to activate a “pathogen in the shot”.
This appears to be a reference to the Covid-19 vaccines, although none of the posts directly specify what “the shot” they’re referring to is exactly.
There is no way a signal from a cell tower could be used to “activate” a pathogen or anything that was in the Covid-19, or any other, vaccine.
Dr Al Edwards, associate professor in biomedical technology at the University of Reading, told Full Fact: “There is no mechanism known to physics or biology that could connect radio signals set by mobile phone data systems, to the biological or chemical materials found in vaccines.”
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
