As you may be aware, the national UK Emergency Alert test is due to take place on Sunday 23rd April 2023. This is a test of the system which will be deployed in case of future national emergencies. It involves an automatic notification to all mobile phones, on all networks, in the form of an alert sound.

Please be aware that victims and survivors of abuse, particularly domestic abuse, may have a secret mobile phone which their abuser is not aware of. From a safeguarding perspective, the sounding of the national alert may place such individuals in danger should their abusers become aware of their secret phone.

We strongly advise that any person known or thought to be vulnerable, or who are or you suspect they may be living with an abusive partner are discretely made aware:

• that the alert will sound even if a mobile phone is switched to silent
• and how to turn off receiving the emergency alert.

If this cannot be achieved discretely you may wish to make the information generally available without raising this as a safeguarding issue.

To turn off the alert on an android phone:

• Go to settings
• Type emergency in the search bar and emergency alert should appear as an option
• Select emergency alerts
• This should take you to a page titled either emergency alerts or broadcast settings
• Click or tap on the blue toggle beside emergency alerts to switch the option off. It will turn grey, and the alert will be switched off.

To turn off the alert on an Iphone:

• Open the settings app
• Select notifications, a red square with a white bell
• Scroll down the notifications screen to the bottom to find emergency alerts
• Tap the toggles to turn the emergency alerts off. They will turn grey, and the alerts will be switched off.