Finland will take a new danger-alert system called FI-Alert into use in November, sending warning messages directly to people's mobile phones, the Interior Ministry said, according to Helsingin Sanomat, Keskisuomalainen and Iltalehti.
The system works on 4G and 5G phones without a separate app or registration. It is based on Cell Broadcast technology, which is in use or under construction in more than 20 European countries. Alerts can be targeted at a specific geographical area and are issued in situations that threaten life, health or property.
The Interior Ministry has signed a service agreement with Suomen Erillisverkot for the procurement. Foreign visitors in Finland will receive the same alerts on their own phones. The new system will be tested nationwide during November.
"It is very important that the population can in future be warned faster, more precisely targeted and more comprehensively. The need to reform danger alerting was recognised in the government programme," Minister of the Interior Mari Rantanen said, according to the ministry's release. Rantanen said developing and deploying FI-Alert had been a long-standing wish, and the government granted funding for it last year.
The reform is written into the government programme.
FI-Alert does not replace existing channels. Radio, television, the 112 Suomi app and web services will keep carrying danger alerts, and the ministry said this multichannel approach matters because the channels complement each other, particularly in disruption situations. The Interior Ministry will hold a press conference on the system on Wednesday at 11, with Rantanen, Rescue Services Director General Kimmo Kohvakka, project manager Mikko Jääskeläinen from the ministry's rescue department and Timo Lehtimäki, CEO of Erillisverkot, speaking.
Discussion of danger alerting was intense in the spring after two drones fell in Southeast Finland and no alert was sent. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said afterwards that one should have been. The reform also includes a new feature for the 112 Suomi app that warns of an airborne threat, intended especially for emergency conditions, with its first phase completed at the turn of the year.