Canada’s new National Public Alerting System is scheduled to go live on April 6, and according to a new report from CTV News, the service will be mandatory for all users with no opt-out options available. While a report suggested that most wireless providers were pushing for an opt-out option that would allow end users to disable the alerts, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has decided that consumers will not be able to turn off the warnings.
CRTC spokesperson Patricia Valladao emphasized that “There is a high importance that people—want it or not—receive these alerts,” a decision supported by Public Safety Canada, with assistant deputy ministry Patrick Tanguy adding that “When you’re getting those alerts your life is at risk. So it’s not there’s potentially a danger, there is a danger.”
Similar alerting systems have been in place elsewhere for some time, although glitches in other systems — such as the now infamous Hawaiian missile attack alert — have left many users looking for ways to opt out receiving alerts.
Tanguay has admitted that the new system “is not 100 per cent bulletproof” but added that the government has been working on researching best practices and training staff “to make sure those events don’t happen like it happened in Hawaii.”
The Alert Ready service is being administered by a private company, Pelmorex, which is also the parent company of The Weather Network. Test alerts are scheduled to be sent out in early May to familiarize users with the new system, which will only be supported on LTE devices that include wireless public alerting (WPA), which includes the iPhone 5 and all later models.
