We have started the month of September with a intense temporary that plagues a large part of the peninsula: the DANA is bringing heavy rains with the risk of flooding. This can be dangerous in some situations for the citizen, reason enough for the Government to use the emergency alert system with the purpose of keep us informed.
You may have heard around you how this system has been the protagonist over the weekend, with alerts that have reached the mobiles of many users. In case it has not arrived, and you want to fix it, we will see the reasons for your absence and how to arrange to receive them.
The Civil Protection alert has not reached my Android
With the strong blow from DANA, the Government has used the national alert system to contact the citizen, warning them of the situation due to the storm. Surely you have seen the aforementioned alert, either on the phone of a relative or close friend, and in reality should have reached us allWithout exceptions.
If this is not the case, we should not despair either, because there are a couple of reasons that can justify its absenceYes, with the possibility of fixing it. It is worth mentioning that the alleged violations that many attribute to this alert system do not violate the data protection lawso this is not the reason.
In fact, the reason why it has not reached your mobile is perfectly understood when you understand how does this system work. Civil Protection can send them to citizens’ mobiles, but the system considers the location of the user. Therefore, if we were not in a somewhat dangerous area, punished by the storm, our phone will not have received the alert. And no, it does not use the location of the mobile but the location of the antenna to which we are connected.
Indeed, this system has the ability to discriminate depending on where we are and It has all the sense of the world. It is useless to create social alarm when not all localities are being hit in the same way by DANA.
This is the number one reason, but there is still another possibility. We mean that these alerts must be activated on our own device, otherwise they will not arrive. How can I activate them on Android? Well, simpler than we may think at first.
Although the setting location may vary depending on the manufacturer of our mobile, the default route in Android stock is the following: Settings> Notifications> Wireless emergency alerts. In the event that we do not find the option, we can use the search bar that we find when we open the settings of our Android.
When accessing from Spain, we will see a master switch as well as the alert called “Civil Protection Pre-Alert”. This is exactly the one that has reached the devices of Madrid citizens over the weekend. Whether the main switch is disabled, or the Civil Protection alert specifically, we would not be allowing these notifications to reach our mobile.
In the same way, we must consider that a problem with the cell would lead to the non-reception of the alert, but this is something we can’t fix. Since these notifications are sent from cell phone masts, it may be the case that they are not sent correctly.
In short, any of the two reasons that we have counted would be enough for our devices to not be able to receive the aforementioned alerts. Now, we will be prepared for what comesand as soon as the authorities send a new notice, it will land on our Android.
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