Page 46 - Security Today, May/June 2019

Cover Story
Leveraging the System
HFow agencies can ensure the protection of people and property
or decades, public alerting systems have served as a critical updated FCC requirements for Emergency Alert Systems adopts re- notification tool for sending alerts to citizens’ smartphones, visions to the Emergency Alert System (EAS) rules and sought com- landlines and through broadcast channels. These systems ment on further measures to improve the effectiveness of both the have assumed even greater importance in recent years, due EAS and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA). Primarily, the items the
to more intense and frequent severe/extreme weather events, as well FCC want to see in the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System
as more diverse non-weather emergency threats. From hurricanes and wildfires to active shooters, missing children and biological at- tack warnings, the need to keep citizens informed with accurate, real- time information is critical to protecting people and property.
On the heels of the Hawaii ballistic missile emergency alert “false alarm” and other incidents, the Federal Communications Commis- sion (FCC) last year announced changes designed to improve the integrity, efficacy and reliability of the nation’s alerting systems. The
(IPAWS) is secured logins, alert launch safeguards and a clear sepa- ration of the test environment from the live environment, including color codes for distinction.
WEA, as many readers know, is a public safety system that allows citizens to receive geographically-targeted, text messages alerting them of safety threats in their area. It was established in 2008 as a result of the Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) Act and was launched in 2012 and according to the FCC, the system been
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GOVERNMENT SECURITY MAY/JUNE 2019
By Troy Harper
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