Hello all,
So this might be a dumb question, but today two family members have told me that with the government’s test of the emergency alarm on the 23rd of April if you fail to acknowledge it on your phone that the government will lock down your phone. They’ve even gone as far as to turn off some alarm settings on the phone Now I’ll be honest, this sounds crazy and upon doing some research I can’t find a single mention of this. So, does anyone know if this is the case or if it’s absolute rubbish it sounds crazy to me and I don’t see how they’d be allowed to do something like that.
Thanks in advance.
43 comments
Sounds like utter bollocks.
That sounds like rubbish tbh, and even *if* it was true, you can opt out of emergency alerts in the settings on your device. So you could always do that if you were more concerned about your phone being locked than being inormed of a disaster.
Utter bollocks.
Those family members are either confused, very gullible, or winding you up.
You could avoid this by placing your phone into a tinfoil hat
It’s down to how it’s being reported.
Essentially it will not let you clear the warning or do anything else with your phone until you acknowledge the message
And turning off notifications or whatever else won’t stop it from being received
>have told me that with the government’s test of the emergency alarm on the 23rd of April if you fail to acknowledge it on your phone that the government will lock down your phone.
And who is there source for this?
Sometimes, I do wonder about the shit people come up with.
All the local grifters have switched from anti-vax, anti-immigration etc content to banging on about this next big conspiracy.
The government wants to warn us, the people, if there’s a threat to our lives! I mean the cheek of it!.
Your phone won’t be locked down. It will get a notification that needs to be cleared. If you don’t clear it, it’ll time out when the test is over.
Obviously this is rubbish (you don’t have to acknowledge alerts – just dismiss them, and you can opt out of them on many providers). But it is worth finding out where exactly they heard this story, because it will lead to a useful conversation about reliable sources, fake news, and possibly head off a path down to weird conspiracy radicalisation.
It’s bullshit, just look at national alerts for Korea hawaii and such
They are just sending a message to everyone’s phone. Government already know how much you earn, bank statements and gps can tell you where you are or likely to be.
Cell phone towers can track you in the area your phone is. Amazon listens to you when your a sleep, Alexa.
Your family members are idiots.
Thought so, and yes they seriously believe it’s real. It sounded mad to me but crazier things have happened.i didn’t know a thing about this emergency alert system anyway. Thanks for all the replies.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64999417
“Phone users will have to acknowledge the alert before they can use other features on their devices”
It does read as if until you acknowledge the alert your phone will temporarily lock out other uses but it shouldn’t be difficult to read and dismiss the alert.
It also says this will only be smartphones, I was initially concerned because my Mother uses a doro phone purely for the panic button feature and doesn’t even open it to check for messages etc. But as it’s not a smartphone I’m hoping it’ll be fine.
Just change your settings to ‘opt out’ of emergency alerts.
I swear this sub needs a “critical thinking for beginners” book.
Where has this information come from?
Does it make any sense?
What use is locking down a phone if you don’t acknowledge the notification?
How does it benefit both the government and the user?
No this can’t happen. You have to acknowledge the message for it to disappear but that’s it.
Sounds like your family members haven’t read the articles correctly – What it actually will do is pop up on the screen and you won’t be able to use your screen until you acknowledge the alert.
The message will stay on the screen until you interact with it. This isn’t the governments doing, this is your device manufacturer.
These kind of alerts have been used in other countries for years and years…. Around 10 years ago I was living in Florida and we would get sever weather alerts, Silver Alerts and Amber Alerts amongst other warnings… I don’t see a problem with it at all.
At least it gives a bit of variety to the nutcases that have only been obsessed with COViD and the vaccine for the last four years.
I bet everyone that works at GBNews is in the office masturbating furiously over this one.
No it will not. Just think of it like a current notification but with an extra step, acknowledging the message before letting you into your phone.
You can turn emergency alerts off in your settings. It’s just a text message.
Tbf OP is just asking a question. Dunno why everyone gets so emotional about everything these days.
Becoming like America. Not everything has to be politicised.
The phone is locked from use until the alert is acknowledged.
So, yes, I suppose technically, the government is locking your phone.
The conspiracy followers/theorists are bored seen lots of posts with the cretins suggesting this has something to do with war coming/putin etc etc etc – fecking idiots all of them. Countries have alerts like this & if its not a phone alert its a siren of some sort.
Did they have tinfoil hats on when they told you this?
It’s literally just a notification. Yes, you have to acknowledge it so they know the messages are working and being reached.
Most of the time I’m better in a sudden crisis than I am when I’ve got time to think about it.
Nuclear bomb heading my way, I really don’t want to know.
Gov sends a notification and when I dismiss it it installs spy software on my phone? Fill your boots with my life, if that’s what interests you.
I really don’t care. It’s all way bigger than me, so fuck it
The US has been using an emergency text alert system for ages, it just pops up on your phone like a notification. If it’s on vibrate it buzzes, if the sound is on it goes off like a horn/buzzer type sound.
>They’ve even gone as far as to turn off some alarm settings on the phone
It’ll make your keyboard all sticky
Give your poodle a hickey
And invest your cash in stock in Euro Disney
Then, it will tie up your phone, making crank long-distance calls
It’ll set your clocks back an hour and start clogging the shower
WAKE UP SHEEPLE
But no, it’s a system that already exists on phones, this is just “We’re going to make use of it”
Sounds like Facebook mum scaremongering to me
I heard a bloke called George will ride past on a horse and chop your head off.
We’ve had this kind of thing in the US for a while. The phone makes a horrible sound, you dismiss the message, and move on with your day.
Swing away meryll
“the government will lock down your phone” was when I made my decision 😉
Short answer: no.
It sounds crazy because it is. This government couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery – and couldn’t do that technologically, even if they wanted to; which they don’t.
You can’t use your phone until you acknowledge it. Acknowledging it involves nothing more than tapping on the notification on your home screen. It’s to ensure that people actually see the alert. Your family members are dumb fearmongers.
It’s like saying you can’t use your phone if you fail to acknowledge your lock screen.
Talking egg, mate
It is a case of absolute rubbish.
This is already a ‘thing’ in various other countries where nobody bats an eyelid (or dons a tin foil hat). I have received them, in the Netherlands if I’m remembering right, on my UK phone, which seems terribly clever.
Why would your phone be locked? And how? And again, why?
This is nonsense. The government don’t have the power or ability to do that. It would be a gross human rights issue. And the county would go into meltdown. I do long shifts at work where I can’t check my phone. Also due to working some night shifts I sleep during the day for several hours. What would people do who are on holiday or ill and aren’t going to be using their phones for several days. Or people with work phones on annual leave or ill who have switched them off for several days.
I’ve had them before, was signed up to testing at one point. They’re loud alarms that can be dismissed easily. Like most alarms, they take over your screen with alarm details, so you have to dismiss them to get back to what you were doing.
Most phones you can edit the emergency alert settings in the regular Settings app… look up your model for specifics.
Oh fuck, here we go. All the awake conspiracy theorists will have a great time with this.
They are fucking morons. What are they afraid of being locked out of, Netflix or Deliveroo?
Although it is true that the council are going to use it to check if you are putting the recycling in the right bins so they can fine you, That is true 100% I had a mate who I used to share a flat with his postmans brother works for MI5 and that’s what he told me.
Your two family members are chatting out of their arse.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64999417](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64999417)
The article claims you will not be able to use your phone for anything else until you respond to the signal/test.
And reading the Gov’s own site it does seem to suggest that you need to respond to the test.