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Just a reminder that the UK government will conduct another major nationwide test of the Emergency Alerts service at 3pm tomorrow (Sunday 7th September 2025), which will be sent out via mobile networks to supporting handsets. This is otherwise normally only intended to be used if there’s a “danger to life nearby” (severe flooding, fires and extreme weather etc.).
The last national test took place on 23rd April 2023 and helped to identify a number of issues. But it’s since been used on several other occasions, albeit in a more localised way, to help warn of several major storms and floods (e.g. Storm Éowyn in Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland during January 2025). You can see a Summary of Past Emergency Alerts on the government’s official website.
Systems like this need to be tested on a regular basis to ensure they’re working properly and to help familiarise the population with their function. The alert itself typically manifests as a loud 10-second siren sound blaring out at you from your mobile phone (even if it’s set to “silent“), which will also vibrate for the same period and display a message to say that it’s just a test of the Emergency Alerts system.
The alerts themselves are broadcast from cell towers in the vicinity of an emergency (they don’t need your phone number for this to work) and will only ever come from the Government (i.e. departments, agencies and public bodies that deal with emergencies) or the emergency services. Such alerts are a free one-way secure communication and do NOT reveal anyone’s location or collect personal data.
The exact message structure of the September 2025 test is not yet known, but the original one in April 2023 is pictured at the top of this article and we’d expect the new test to follow a similar style. People at risk of domestic violence or whom simply don’t want to be bothered by the alert can opt-out here, but we’d generally otherwise recommend that people keep it enabled for obvious reasons.
Officially speaking, the government states that their alerts will work on Apple iPhones running iOS v14.5 or later and Android phones / tablets running Android v11 or later. But we have seen them being received by earlier versions, as well as devices other than Smartphones.
Finally, remember NOT to read or respond to an emergency alert while driving or riding – no matter how panicked it might make you, as doing so would be illegal (you need to find somewhere safe and legal to stop before reading the message).