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It's getting worse. Most US states [1] have started to use the phone siren system for injured cops as well. Regardless of your politics on this, what exactly am I supposed to do with a notification at 2AM that a cop was shot 400 miles away? Seems like the phone alert system is being used to push public perceptions rather than public safety.

[1] https://cops.usdoj.gov/BlueAlert

> Seems like the phone alert system is being used to push public perceptions rather than public safety.

Yes, they absolutely are. Just a couple weeks ago, local law enforcement sent out an incredibly vague shelter-in-place active-shooter alert across the entire Twin Cities area for a situation in a suburb that was resolved about five minutes later[1]. Schools were locked down, buildings closed, etc. And wouldn't you know it, there's an election in two weeks where the Republicans, who the police unanimously endorse and campaign for, are running on a "crime is out of control" narrative! Crazy coincidence, that.

[1] The entirety of the message was, "Shelter in place - Homicide suspect at large described as 17 year old white male." No location specified, sent to the entire urban region. https://www.startribune.com/shelter-in-place-alert-about-hom...

That shelter-in-place alert did not follow well-established practices that require more details in the content and more geographically limited alerts. The agency that sent this alert got an earful afterwards and presumably will update their training.

If you think this was an accident or result of poor training, I've got a Stone Arch Bridge to sell you. Law enforcement here is unsupervised and completely out of control and regularly interferes with elections.

What is your point - that the alerting agency is evil and wanted to disturb more people than necessary?

Substitute "wanted to influence the upcoming election by pushing a crime narrative" for "is evil," and yes.

I have no trouble perceiving the point that the problem is intentional vs unintentional misuse of a facility.

An honest mistake is an accident that isn't repeated, or if repeated, happens in a random manner rather than exhibiting any particular pattern (seems to express neither a conservative nor a liberal worldview, nor any other potential agenda, consistently).

If someone has a desire to do something like use some position or tool they happen to have access to for some purpose of their own rather than it's intended use, and lacks the integrity to avoid doing so on their own, that desire and that lack of integrity doesn't change or stop even if they get chastised for some misdeed. They still want to do things like that, and they still don't see what the problem is, and they still do the same things, merely trying to do a better job of camoflage and deniability.

FWIW, I live in Minneapolis and didn’t receive that alert (just confirmed that I have emergency alerts enabled in iOS).

I was in my car in St. Paul at the time when the message went out. I heard the alarm and assumed that it was an Amber alert. When I got to the next stop light I glanced at my phone and saw two messages. One telling me to shelter in place (why?) and the next saying that the suspect was apprehended.

This was completely useless and actually distracting considering that I was in heavy traffic at the time.

The two instances where alerts are typically sent statewide are Blue and Amber. The theory in both is that the perp may be many miles away from where the incident took place. And that is often the case, especially with child abductions.

Some states will not send alerts overnight and others will; it is a matter of state policy - and ultimately an issue for the ballot box.

> Amber alerts are bad. We get them now and them in Ontario at 3am, sent to the entire (rather large) province. This is idiotic. The probability that someone would be awake and in a position to observe an abducted child at 3am is negligible. The probability that someone woken at 3am will not be able to get back to sleep, drive to work in the morning when drowsy, and consequently get into an accident that kills someone, is not negligible.

That's why I disable them totally. In my experience, they're always just a description of a car, and realistically there's literally nothing I can do with that information. When I'm at home, I'm not going to check license plates, and when I'm driving I'm not going to check my phone (nor remember a random license plate number for more than 10 seconds to check anything).

They're also always "non-custodial parent took the kids," and I'm pretty sure the police in that case can quickly discover much better information than I could ever give them. There was one recently in my area that a friend of mine received. Later I read in the paper that they just tracked the guy's cell phone to find him.

Part of the problem is that now the system is in place, if you don't use it and later it turns out that maybe perhaps possibly it could have helped, you've got the possibility of a career-ending hurricane of piss coming your way, civil and maybe even criminal suits, and all of that. Sending out an alert is in many ways a very rational choice, even when it doesn't really make any sense.

Look how parents who don't handcuff their children to their wrists so they can keep an eye on them 24/7 are often treated.

The government gets to re discovered alert fatigue i guess… instead of just asking anyone who has ever been on call

There is no such thing as Phone/Mobile AMBER Alerts in Ontario.

The US system has different levels of alerts: Presidential/National Alerts, AMBER Alerts, Extreme Weather Alerts, Dangerous Weather Alerts, etc. On my Pixel 6, everything but the Presidential/National Alerts can be disabled. Same with my wife's Galaxy S22. I assume the same for iPhones.

However the Canadian system (which is heavily based on the American system) is setup differently. All alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alerts'. None of the other alert levels are used.

> However the Canadian system (which is heavily based on the American system) is setup differently. All alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alerts'. None of the other alert levels are used.

That's the dumbest thing ever. A presidential alert basically means "nukes incoming."

Here in the states, the Trump administration sent one out as "a test". I was not sober at the time and I genuinely was very nervous for the few seconds it took to open my phone and read the message.

It was pretty widely publicized before it happened, and I think it even got delayed a few days, during the business day. Honestly, I can't imagine it will ever be used for reals[1], but testing it once seems reasonable.

[1] few disasters, man made or natural, reach national scope. Even a grid failure would likely only reach half the country, but do you need a national alert for that? What useful content could it have?

Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message... And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely.

> Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message..

What now? Sure it would cause less panic--in same the way shooting someone in the head unannounced would cause less panic than giving them warning to duck. If the nukes are incoming, "avoiding panic" is the wrong priority.

> And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely.

IIRC, they're triggered directly for NORAD (or whatever it's called nowadays). There was actually a false alarm alert in the 70s, and it did get out quickly (google "code word hatefulness").

> There was actually a false alarm alert in the 70s, and it did get out quickly (google "code word hatefulness").

Well it got out quickly, but the cancellation was slow.

I have no doubt that the alerts would go out quickly, if there was a decision to send them (and assuming the means to send them is still around). More and more of these systems has gotten automated so there's no one at the local stations who would need to decide to send or not. I'm just not sure that the 25 minutes or so between detection and impact is enough time to decide to send an alert, amidst all the other activities that would certainly need to be done.

> Here in the states, the Trump administration sent one out as "a test". I was not sober at the time and I genuinely was very nervous for the few seconds it took to open my phone and read the message.

That's kind of understandable, though. If the nukes really are incoming, you want to make sure your alert system actually works, and the only way to really do that is to test it.

Which provider are you with? They show up as Amber alerts for me and can be disabled from my unlocked pixel (stock os, not rooted) with bell. I have confirmed this by being with other people when an alert happened to go off. Usually though I leave them on and silenced (seems to respect my ringer volume and do not disturb settings).

What province?

Ontario

We have the option to disable 'AMBER Alerts' on both our Pixel and S22 phones. However it does nothing as the alerts all come in as National/Presidential Alerts.

We are on Telus/Videotron.

Not sure if you'll see this, but I stand corrected, just received a test alert on my new pixel 7 despite having those turned off. I used to not receive those (or they were at least silent, I forget since I didn't receive any in at least a year and now suddenly with my new phone) with my og pixel, both are unlocked and not-rooted with stock android. Only other difference is I also needed a new sim card because for some reason it wasn't working in my new phone. I had that sim for over 10 years, used it in my old pixel and was still registered with bell as belonging to a blackberry.

I wonder then if it's an error on the providers side? Because I had Extreme and Severe on, AMBER and Test off, and Vibration On (under alert preferences for wireless emergency alerts). The only other data points I have are iPhone users (bell and telus) where I am unsure of their configuration, only that they hear the alerts.

Ontario does have amber alerts

https://amberalert.opp.ca/

I'm not talking about AMBER Alert in General, I'm talking about the mobile phone warning system.

The Canadian is based on the US system with different levels: National/Presidential Alert, AMBER Alert, Extreme Weather Alert, Dangerous Weather Alert, etc.

However in our system, all alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alert'.

Ontario is worse than most places because, at least as of a couple of years ago, they send all alerts as Presidential alerts, meaning they can't be turned off at all.

Its all Presidental Alerts. But its not just Ontario, its all of Canada!

Don't forget the 3am alert is often because of a huge delay by countless bureaucrats too. Reading the message and finding out the incident or whatever happened 8 or 10 hours earlier is utterly ridiculous.

They're also very distracting while driving, especially if you're relying on maps since they cover the entire screen.

Or how about the 3:30 AM follow up alert letting you know the child was found and is fine.