this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
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Does an Amber alert get sent to every phone in a region, including the target? (lemmy.radio)
submitted 8 months ago by vk6flab@lemmy.radio to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I just saw a post with someone questioning the usefulness of an Amber alert 400 km away from where a vehicle was spotted¹ and wondered if the alert itself would indiscriminately be sent to every phone in a target region, and if that would include the phone of the person of interest, which would seem counterproductive at best.

¹ I pointed out that the car might be known to travel to that region, even if it was last seen 400 km away.

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[–] mugita_sokiovt@discuss.online 24 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

In America, all telecom providers have to push these out, and the POI would also be included. In your area, I would imagine similar rules are in place for that. GrapheneOS users can disable it, though.

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 20 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Can also confirm a setting to turn it off on iPhone and some dumbphones. Found out after once receiving the same alert 5 times in a row. GrapheneOS can uniquely block presidential alerts though.

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 18 points 8 months ago

GrapheneOS can uniquely block presidential alerts though.

I love open source

[–] natecox@programming.dev 7 points 8 months ago

I had an iPhone flip out at one point and do the full screeching alarm cycle every 15 seconds or so for several minutes until I figured out how to turn it off.

Fun side story: I told my friends about it and how to turn it off, and one of them like berated me for being selfish because I didn’t want my phone screaming at me continuously for an alert I already knew about. That’s how I learned that guy was a shithead.