'A glitch with the system': What's up with the tsunami phone alerts?

Otago Daily Times

3 days ago

Many New Zealanders were woken up by an emergency mobile alert sent out at 6.30am today, but for some the alerts have either come repeatedly or not at all.
Officials say the risk of strong currents and unpredictable surges is still very high following Wednesday's big earthquake in Russia
The threat to the Canterbury coast is likely to remain in place until noon.
NEMA Civil Defence Emergency Management director John Price told Morning Report a technical glitch was to blame for issues with the alert.
He said two official alerts had been sent out, one on Wednesday afternoon and one on Thursday morning.
"We made the call to send out another emergency alert [Thursday morning] to remind New Zealanders, especially if they're on route to work, school or other activities, to avoid being near the coast because that is where the main threat [is]."
Texts to RNZ from listeners show some people have received an alert multiple times, while others haven't received an alert at all.
Helen from Christchurch said she didn't get any alert at all, while a woman in Levin didn't receive an alert Thursday morning despite others nearby getting them.
A number of people said the alert disappeared from their phone before they were able to read it.
RNZ has heard from one person who said she keeps getting the alert repeatedly and when she dismisses it it comes back up, draining the battery of her phone.
Price said they were urgently looking into the problem.
"There seems to have been a glitch with the system and we do send these alerts out and we're looking into this urgently.
"It's a technical glitch and it's not something we, the software, we have a different software company, we use three cellphone providers because the way the system works, the message or the text is sent out, it goes to a cell tower, the cell tower then sends that message to phones that are in that designated area."
Coastal areas were designated for this alert, he said.
"As to why it has repeated itself or why it has taken time to get through, these are all good questions that we need to find out the answer to."
Price said the emergency alert to phones was only one tool to let people know about an emergency. Radio and other media sources were also key.
"Hence why we say to people, this is not foolproof, we have to have multiple ways of communicating and we pushed out those multiple communication networks." What exactly are emergency mobile alerts?
You can read RNZ's full explainer on emergency alerts here.
A warning broadcast to your mobile phone, they've been around in New Zealand since 2017. They come with a loud buzz that can usually be heard even if you're on silent mode and a banner notification detailing the emergency.
They've been used for everything from tsunami warnings to dangerous fires to thunderstorms.
Many other countries use them and they got a particularly good workout in New Zealand during the Covid-19 pandemic. How can they send messages to everyone's phones? And why are there glitches?
Alerts use cell broadcast technology known as geotargeting to send alerts through cell towers in a selected area - which can be the entire country, as in Sunday's test, or down to a small section of a city.
New Zealand's system was provided by Dutch company one2many, which is now a division of Everbridge Public Warning, an American software company that specialises in alert systems.
In a description of their technology, Everbridge says "one message can be sent to millions of devices within a target area in seconds".
"A really oversimplified way of putting it, it's like a signal that your phone picks up, which is almost like radio," NEMA communications manager Anthony Frith said.
When an alert is issued, the agency involved will select how big a region is covered, depending on the specific crisis.
"The operator who sends the emergency alert will draw a polygon around that area, a shape they need to make sure is big enough to capture cell phone towers in the perimeter," Frith said.
Auckland Emergency Management general manager Adam Maggs said, while targeted messages work well, who gets them varies, depending on a variety of factors.
"In terms of one person [in a household] receiving a message and another not, this could be due to being just outside of the geographically targeted area. The boundary for the geotargeted area is not a 'hard' boundary and there can be message leakage, depending on the location of cell towers.
"Other reasons include having a phone that may be older or has missed a software update, or the phone may not have had mobile reception." How do they know my phone number, anyway?
They don't. The system uses the cellphone network as a carrier of the notifications that NEMA or other emergency agencies send out.
"Our system does not have any telephone numbers," Frith confirmed. "Once we've transmitted the message from our portal, it then goes to the cell towers." I hate that phone noise, can't I opt out?
No.
You can't choose not to receive an emergency alert - after all, the point is that it's meant to be used for an emergency. Because it's sent out over cell phone towers, there's no 'list' of names on it to be removed from.
The flurry of alerts sent out in Auckland in April saw some backlash on social media.
"We often receive feedback from Aucklanders asking to be removed from the EMA system [which is not possible]," Maggs said.
"We get just as much feedback thanking us for an alert or update. This will always be the case and we are fine with that.
"At the end of the day, our goal is to help Aucklanders stay as safe as possible in times of emergency and we will continue to work hard to ensure that."