A fire, a terrorist act, a nuclear incident… A new telephone alert and information system enabling the population to be informed in the event of a major event of this type is being deployed by the French authorities.
This is the device, called FR-Alert, which sends a notification to the mobile phone, accompanied by a shrill ringing in the event of presence in a danger zone.
This notification takes the form of an SMS.
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For several hours, owners of an Apple phone have been receiving a request for an “
update of operator settings
” so that their mobile can display these notifications.
This step is not required for users of an Android smartphone since they are already configured by default.
No application needs to be downloaded for this device to work, unlike the application called SAIP which was launched by the government after the 2015 attacks but which had been used very little by the French. .
An operational system by the end of June
According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, this system can be used in a real situation from the end of June.
Various experiments have been carried out in France in recent months, particularly in the Bouches-du-Rhône in mid-May.
This alert notification is sent to the population concerned for safety during natural events such as flooding or fire, biological and chemical events (pollution, gas leak, etc.), health events (epidemic, pandemic), technological and industrial (industrial incident, serious accidents on road networks, etc.) but also serious public security events such as acts of a terrorist nature.
The notification will include several pieces of information: the nature of the event and the danger it represents, the place or the geographical area concerned, safety instructions and, where applicable, a link to an official website for further information.
The alerts are sent using a technology called “
cell broadcasting
”, ie the message is broadcast via telecommunications antennas in the form of radio waves, on a dedicated channel.
But this technology relies on a 4G or 5G connection.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, the sending of these alerts using SMS technology will be implemented "
later
", in particular for French people who have a telephone with a 2G or 3G connection.
No personal data is collected by the authorities during the dissemination of the alert.
Read alsoHow will population alerts work on mobile phones?
The deployment of this FR-Alert system in France stems from a European directive of 2018, which obliges all member countries to use this technology by June 21, 2022. This system is already used elsewhere in the world, notably in Japan for fifteen years and in the United States for ten years.