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bombcar 4y ago
I suspect it's all automated, and since the vast majority are custody issues, there's probably something like "you were supposed to hand over your daughter by 10 PM, but we don't count it as late until after midnight, and THEN your ex-wife has to call and complain, and by the time it's in the system it's 3 AM, and the system automatically sends the alert". And then they don't even send another alert saying she was found safe and sound sleeping at her dad's house.
- palmscenter 4y ago
  There is nothing automated about originating those alerts. The actual procedure for transmitting the alert is manual. The incident has to meet state criteria including likelihood of harm to the child, criminal activity, information about the vehicle and other facts. A missing child in a custody dispute alone is rarely enough to trigger an alert. One of the leading types of child abductions leading to alerts is vehicle theft with a child in the vehicle. Not a custody dispute.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > One of the leading types of child abductions leading to alerts is vehicle theft with a child in the vehicle. Not a custody dispute. "The vast majority of child abductions are carried out by a relative or close acquaintance of the victim, often a divorced parent who was not granted custody... about 20 percent involved a kidnapping by a stranger or slight acquaintance of the child. In the other 80 percent of cases, the youngsters were taken by a relative (most often a parent) or an acquaintance (frequently a babysitter)." source: https://psmag.com/social-justice/amber-alerts-largely-ineffective-study-shows-4792 https://psmag.com/social-justice/amber-alerts-largely-ineffe...
    - EE84M3i 4y ago
      Are there any stats available about the breakdown for the subset that get amber alerts?
      - autoexec 4y ago
        Sorry, my fault for combining sentences! it was 80% of the amber alerts they studied. "Presumably because of that need "to make an intuitive, rapid decision," as Griffin puts it, AMBER Alerts often turn out to be false alarms. Of the alerts the UNR team tracked, about 20 percent involved a kidnapping by a stranger or slight acquaintance of the child. In the other 80 percent of cases, the youngsters were taken by a relative (most often a parent) or an acquaintance (frequently a babysitter). While such incidents can be traumatic to both the child and the custodial parent, they are routinely resolved peacefully."
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> To be honest I wonder if the people in charge were starting to get a kick at waking up so many people, or if they were engaging in some sort of malicious compliance I doubt it. The messages were just incremental additions of information as it was added: First message had something about the area. Second message had the color of the vehicle. Third one added another detail or a correction or something, I can’t remember. I just remember that everyone in my local office was visibly tired the next day and we all shared the information to turn the alerts off.

registeredcorn 4y ago

>I was getting alerts from many hundreds of miles away. Isn't part of the issue that when a child is taken, the assumption is that the kidnapper will immediately flee the area? I think hundreds, plural, might be excessive, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to notify people within a certain distance based on high speed and how much time has passed; maybe 50-100 miles? I can see getting annoyed at multiple messages, but it's also important to remember that working with time sensitive emergency services is a extraordinarily difficult thing. It's like, everything is important all at once, and your mind can only process it all so fast. It's extremely time sensitive, and if you mess up any of the details, you are directly delaying the proceedings. I haven't had to issue anything like an Amber Alert, thank God, but I did have to relay some information from a victims family to a supporting organization, and basically screwed it up the first time around. I ended up having to end the call with the family, call the organization to see what they needed, call the family back, then call them again with the relevant details. It was an incredibly brutal thing. You can feel the rawness of the emotion through the phone for the people. In my own experience, like, I could hear people crying and screaming in the background. It's this insanely personal moment for them, but you kind of have to force your way in the middle of it to make something happen. The person who I started off with had to hand the phone over because they thought they were about to pass out. It's really a very difficult to communicate in the midst of a crisis. Anyway, I'm not sure which area you're in, but from my own experience, the very few times I've gotten one, it was always very succinct and clear. Child's name, description of their clothes, make/model/license plate of car, which direction they were headed, and when it happened. I certainly don't blame you for turning off the alerts, or for being annoyed at the emergency services. The point wasn't to finger wag or whatever, it was just to say that it's extremely difficult to do, let alone do well.

bombcar 4y ago
The problem is that very few are actually "stranger danger" kidnappings; they're almost always custody disputes. And if you live anywhere near a major city, you will get them relatively often. If there was a way to turn off "parent kidnappings" and leave the rest on, I'm sure most people would take it.
- palmscenter 4y ago
  It doesn't matter whether the cause is a custody dispute or something else. Custody disputes of themselves do not meet the criteria for AMBER alerts. Danger to the child and criminal activity are among the criteria that have to be met for the alert to be sent. States vary as to how effectively they run their alerting systems, and how well they follow best practices, but that is ultimately an issue for the voters.
- registeredcorn 4y ago
  Although I agree with the premise you are making, that many Amber Alerts are regularly caused because one of the parents takes the child without authorization, it is important to remember that sexual and physical violence, including murder, is more likely to be committed by someone known to the victim rather than a stranger. The perpetrator is largely immaterial. To suppose that a child is therefore somehow in less danger because they were taken by a parent does not appear to make much difference, based on my rudimentary understanding of things. A parent who is prone to stealing a child to "get revenge" on the spouse is one who is willing to harm and abuse their own flesh and blood as part of a revenge plot. In my own assessment, I classify that person to be dangerous. A stranger takes a child for an unknown reason. A parent takes a child, willingly harming the child physically or mentally in hopes of doing harm to a person they hate. I would assume they are willing to do far more than mere mental harm to the child, if it means "winning" the fight. I don't have any data to back that up, and it's entirely possible I'm wrong. I just don't see an Amber Alert being raised because a parent took the child to be any less serious than if a stranger took the child. I would imagine that some number of Amber Alerts are a kind of "false positive", something like failing to drop a child off on time (out of gas, severe traffic, etc.) and their phone dying, turning into a big ordeal, but I just wouldn't discount the situation just because the suspect is a parent. Maybe that shouldn't meet the threshold, but I just personally don't see it as being a big enough nuisance to be bothered by it. Again, it is easy for me to say that though, since I don't get those sorts of alerts very often, maybe 2 to 3 times per year, if that. I do also completely agree though, that as it relates to headphone usage it should be changed. I think that if you are listening on your headphones, it shouldn't come through your headphones at all. Just play the noise on the phone speaker - it'll probably still draw the users attention. I might be asking too much though, as there was that 911 bug [1][2] a while back. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29492884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29492884 [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/r4xz1f/pixel_prevented_me_from_calling_911/ https://old.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/r4xz1f/pixel_p...
  - landemva 4y ago
    Beyond the nuisance factor, there is literally nothing helpful I can do. I turned the alerts off. Knowledge of something does not mean we can control it - kidnapping, earthquake.

bradleyankrom 4y ago
FWIW, I live in Minneapolis and didn’t receive that alert (just confirmed that I have emergency alerts enabled in iOS).
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  I was in my car in St. Paul at the time when the message went out. I heard the alarm and assumed that it was an Amber alert. When I got to the next stop light I glanced at my phone and saw two messages. One telling me to shelter in place (why?) and the next saying that the suspect was apprehended. This was completely useless and actually distracting considering that I was in heavy traffic at the time.
palmscenter 4y ago
That shelter-in-place alert did not follow well-established practices that require more details in the content and more geographically limited alerts. The agency that sent this alert got an earful afterwards and presumably will update their training.
- coldpie 4y ago
  If you think this was an accident or result of poor training, I've got a Stone Arch Bridge to sell you. Law enforcement here is unsupervised and completely out of control and regularly interferes with elections.
  - palmscenter 4y ago
    What is your point - that the alerting agency is evil and wanted to disturb more people than necessary?
    - coldpie 4y ago
      Substitute "wanted to influence the upcoming election by pushing a crime narrative" for "is evil," and yes.
    - Brian_K_White 4y ago
      I have no trouble perceiving the point that the problem is intentional vs unintentional misuse of a facility. An honest mistake is an accident that isn't repeated, or if repeated, happens in a random manner rather than exhibiting any particular pattern (seems to express neither a conservative nor a liberal worldview, nor any other potential agenda, consistently). If someone has a desire to do something like use some position or tool they happen to have access to for some purpose of their own rather than it's intended use, and lacks the integrity to avoid doing so on their own, that desire and that lack of integrity doesn't change or stop even if they get chastised for some misdeed. They still want to do things like that, and they still don't see what the problem is, and they still do the same things, merely trying to do a better job of camoflage and deniability.

RegnisGnaw 4y ago

There is no such thing as Phone/Mobile AMBER Alerts in Ontario. The US system has different levels of alerts: Presidential/National Alerts, AMBER Alerts, Extreme Weather Alerts, Dangerous Weather Alerts, etc. On my Pixel 6, everything but the Presidential/National Alerts can be disabled. Same with my wife's Galaxy S22. I assume the same for iPhones. However the Canadian system (which is heavily based on the American system) is setup differently. All alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alerts'. None of the other alert levels are used.

acc_297 4y ago
Ontario does have amber alerts https://amberalert.opp.ca/ https://amberalert.opp.ca/
- RegnisGnaw 4y ago
  I'm not talking about AMBER Alert in General, I'm talking about the mobile phone warning system. The Canadian is based on the US system with different levels: National/Presidential Alert, AMBER Alert, Extreme Weather Alert, Dangerous Weather Alert, etc. However in our system, all alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alert'.
Elyra 4y ago
Which provider are you with? They show up as Amber alerts for me and can be disabled from my unlocked pixel (stock os, not rooted) with bell. I have confirmed this by being with other people when an alert happened to go off. Usually though I leave them on and silenced (seems to respect my ringer volume and do not disturb settings).
- RegnisGnaw 4y ago
  What province?
  - Elyra 4y ago
    Ontario
    - RegnisGnaw 4y ago
      We have the option to disable 'AMBER Alerts' on both our Pixel and S22 phones. However it does nothing as the alerts all come in as National/Presidential Alerts. We are on Telus/Videotron.
      - Elyra 4y ago
        I wonder then if it's an error on the providers side? Because I had Extreme and Severe on, AMBER and Test off, and Vibration On (under alert preferences for wireless emergency alerts). The only other data points I have are iPhone users (bell and telus) where I am unsure of their configuration, only that they hear the alerts.
      - Elyra 4y ago
        Not sure if you'll see this, but I stand corrected, just received a test alert on my new pixel 7 despite having those turned off. I used to not receive those (or they were at least silent, I forget since I didn't receive any in at least a year and now suddenly with my new phone) with my og pixel, both are unlocked and not-rooted with stock android. Only other difference is I also needed a new sim card because for some reason it wasn't working in my new phone. I had that sim for over 10 years, used it in my old pixel and was still registered with bell as belonging to a blackberry.
tablespoon 4y ago
> However the Canadian system (which is heavily based on the American system) is setup differently. All alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alerts'. None of the other alert levels are used. That's the dumbest thing ever. A presidential alert basically means "nukes incoming."
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Here in the states, the Trump administration sent one out as "a test". I was not sober at the time and I genuinely was very nervous for the few seconds it took to open my phone and read the message.
  - toast0 4y ago
    It was pretty widely publicized before it happened, and I think it even got delayed a few days, during the business day. Honestly, I can't imagine it will ever be used for reals[1], but testing it once seems reasonable. [1] few disasters, man made or natural, reach national scope. Even a grid failure would likely only reach half the country, but do you need a national alert for that? What useful content could it have? Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message... And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message.. What now? Sure it would cause less panic--in same the way shooting someone in the head unannounced would cause less panic than giving them warning to duck. If the nukes are incoming, "avoiding panic" is the wrong priority. > And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely. IIRC, they're triggered directly for NORAD (or whatever it's called nowadays). There was actually a false alarm alert in the 70s, and it did get out quickly (google "code word hatefulness").