Alerting Federal Council wants to improve cell phone warnings in the event of a disaster

The Federal Council wants to modernize the alerting of the population in the event of a disaster and adapt it to changing habits. To this end, it is expanding alerting via cell phone and other digital channels. However, the current system of sirens is to remain in place.

At its meeting on Wednesday, the national government discussed the defense department's strategy on the subject, as it announced. At the same time, the Federal Council instructed the department to submit a consultation draft in the first half of next year.

The Federal Council wants to improve the alerting of the population in particular through a new type of cell phone alerting, namely the introduction of cell broadcast technology. This technology is based on mobile phone networks and makes it possible to send short messages of around 500 characters per voice to all cell phones within the reception range of an antenna.

In addition, the Alertswiss app, which is already used by 2.2 million people, and the associated website are to be further developed. With regard to sirens, the Federal Council is of the opinion that they should remain an important part of the alerting system. In particular, they should have a high level of reliability.

Until now, the cantons have been responsible for this. The Federal Council now wants the Department of Defense to clarify how costs and responsibilities should be distributed in the future.

SDA