A bipartisan bill designed to ensure more people receive government Emergency Alerts could see them broadcast in audio and video streaming services like Apple Music and Apple TV+…
The proposed legislation was originally introduced in response to the false alert back in January of last year, where what was supposed to be a test of the Emergency Alert system resulted in a live message being sent. People on Hawaii were woken by a loud alert on their smartphones and a message saying that missiles were incoming.
A poor user-interface and a careless employee were blamed, but the false alarm also revealed another problem: many of those who should have been alerted weren’t. That’s one problem the Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement (READI) Act wants to address.
The READI Act proposes a number of changes, including repeated government Emergency Alerts on TV and radio rather than the current one-off broadcast. But a key one is recognizing that many people today don’t watch or listen to live broadcasts, instead relying on streaming services. So the Act seeks to ‘explore establishing a system to offer emergency alerts to audio and video online streaming services.’
“South Dakotans understand how drastically the weather can change on a dime,” said Senator Thune, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet. “For that reason, among many others, this legislation would make necessary improvements to help keep South Dakotans and communities around the country safe in times of emergency. I want to thank Sen. Schatz for his leadership on this issue and look forward to working with him to move this bill forward.”
The Act additionally seeks to prevent future false alerts.
The READI Act already has widespread support.
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