Launch of life-saving public emergency alerts

A UK-wide alerts test will take place at 3pm of Sunday 23 April 2023 which will see people receive a test message on their mobile phones.

The alerts on St George’s Day will appear on the home screens of people’s phones, accompanied by a loud warning siren sound and vibration. Phone users will be unable to use other features on their devices unless they acknowledge the alert.

This is a new system that will give the Government and emergency services the capability to send an alert directly to mobiles phones when there is a risk to life has been launched.

Working with mobile broadcasting technology, the Emergency Alerts system will transform the UK’s warning and informing capability; providing a means to get urgent messages quickly to nearly 90 percent of mobile phones in a defined area; providing clear instructions about how best to respond.

The system is now ready to be tested across the country following successful tests in East Suffolk and Reading, as the Government continues to strengthen its resilience capability, making sure it offers the best possible protection against an ever-evolving range of threats.

The alerts will only ever come from the Government or emergency services, and they will issue a warning, always include the details of the area impacted, and provide instructions about how best to respond – linking to gov.uk/alerts where people can receive further information.

Emergency Alerts will be used very rarely, only being sent where there is an immediate risk to people’s lives, so people may not receive an alert for months, or even years.

The service has already been used successfully in a number of other countries, including the US, Canada, the Netherlands and Japan, where it has been widely credited with saving lives, for example, during severe weather events. In the UK, alerts could be used to tell residents of villages being encroached by wildfires, or of severe flooding.