Mobile phone users could soon find themselves receiving emergency text messages warning them of terrorist attacks and natural disasters, under plans announced in the United States yesterday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have announced the “Personal Localized Alerting Network” (PLAN) which will see new handheld devices fitted with special chips to receive the alerts, which will be sent by state and local authorities. The system is designed to supersede all other phone traffic, In an attempt to avoid delays.
According to the FCC, users will be able to opt out of all alerts apart from those sent by the US president.
(What makes messages from the US president so special, I wonder?)
In many ways this can be viewed as a logical progression from the other methods that authorities have used to…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
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