Ministers face backlash over 'nanny state' plans for UK phone alerts

2023-04-18

Anger mounts over UK mobile alert test: Ministers face backlash over ‘nanny state’ plans as millions of phones set to issue ten-second siren warning in UK-wide Government trial this weekend

Millions of mobile phones in UK will issue a ten-second alert at 3pm on Sunday
Jacob Rees-Mogg urged public to ‘switch off unnecessary and intrusive alert’

Ministers faced a growing backlash last night over ‘nanny state’ plans for the nationwide test of a controversial smartphone emergency alert system this weekend.

Millions of mobiles will issue a ten-second siren-like sound at 3pm on Sunday as part of a UK-wide Government trial of the technology.

Tory former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg revealed he is among those defying the Prime Minister’s plea not to switch off the alerts.

There is also fury that the contract to run the scheme, worth nearly £5.7million of taxpayers’ cash, has gone to Fujitsu, the tech giant behind the Post Office IT scandal that saw innocent postmasters jailed.

Mr Rees-Mogg praised The Daily Mail for printing a guide for readers to switch off the alerts after women’s charities and motoring groups also voiced fears over the impact on domestic abuse victims and drivers when the siren sounds. He urged the public to ‘switch off the unnecessary and intrusive alert’.

Ministers faced a growing backlash last night over ‘nanny state’ plans for the nationwide test of a controversial smartphone emergency alert system this weekend

Tory former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg revealed he is among those defying the Prime Minister’s plea not to switch off the alerts

Mr Rees-Mogg, who was Brexit opportunities minister last summer when the Government committed to rolling out the scheme, told GB News: ‘It is back to the nanny state – warning us, telling us, mollycoddling us when instead they should just let people get on with their lives and make sensible decisions for themselves.’

READ MORE: How to turn OFF the Government’s ‘armageddon’ emergency alert message that is set to sound on every smartphone in the UK at 3pm this Sunday

But a Government source accused Mr Rees-Mogg of just ‘chirping from the sidelines’, adding: ‘Jacob himself was a senior minister in the Cabinet Office when the Government decided to do this so he has a short memory. People are free to turn it off, but it is intended to be used very rarely and only in cases where lives are in real danger.’

A poll of Mail+ readers last night revealed around 65 per cent of respondents believe the Government should not be sending the alerts. Downing Street said the system would only be used in emergencies such as flooding, and urged people to keep their phones switched on.

Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said: ‘We are not prescriptive, but we do think this is the system to alert people to significant danger so of course we would encourage people to opt in.’

The lucrative Government contract for the alert system has been awarded to Fujitsu, the Japanese firm responsible for the faulty Post Office Horizon IT software which left innocent sub-postmasters with criminal convictions for fraud and false accounting.

A handful even took their own lives during the scandal.

Mr Rees-Mogg praised The Daily Mail for printing a guide for readers to switch off the alerts

Women’s charities and motoring groups also voiced fears over the impact on domestic abuse victims and drivers when the siren sounds

Meanwhile, a public inquiry is examining who was responsible for the affair, which has resulted in the Post Office paying out more than £30million in compensation. Fujitsu has never apologised.

Conservative peer Lord Arbuthnot, who led the calls for a judge-led inquiry into the scandal, said: ‘The Government’s financial exposure to problems caused by Fujitsu’s Horizon system is eye-wateringly huge. And Fujitsu knew that Horizon was causing these problems.

‘Yet Fujitsu has kept completely silent about the chaos, cost and human misery its Horizon system has caused.

‘Why on Earth would the Government open itself to a re-run of this disaster? I don’t understand it.’

And Conservative MP Lucy Allan – who described the Horizon scandal as ‘appalling’ – said it was ‘wholly inappropriate’ that Fujitsu had been awarded the contract.

She added: ‘Fujitsu played a pivotal role in the Post Office Horizon scandal.

‘Senior Fujitsu UK executives, in post at the material time, such as Michael Keegan, have yet to be held to account for this grotesque injustice.’

Conservative peer Lord Arbuthnot and Tory MP Lucy Allan condemned the alert system being awarded to Fujitsu, the Japanese firm responsible for the faulty Post Office Horizon IT software which left innocent sub-postmasters with criminal convictions for fraud and false accounting

She said she would ask ministers what role Mr Keegan, the Crown Representative at the Cabinet Office – the Government department rolling out the alerts system – had in the decision to award the contract to Fujitsu.

The company is being paid £5million to run the alert service, on top of a further £665,000 to develop it.

Fujitsu was last year granted the £48million contract to maintain the Police National Computer database, despite peers claiming such a decision was ‘appalling’.

And concerns remain over its suitability given hackers accessed its information-sharing tool connected with government records in Japan in 2021. Fujitsu has declined to comment.

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