From Sirens to Smartphones: Expanding Emergency Communication in Norway: A case study of the implementation of Emergency Alert on mobile in Norway

According to a survey a few years back by the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, at least 2.2 million Norwegians live too far away from the nearest physical siren – or typhoon– to be able to hear it. And in 62% of Norway's municipalities, everyone lives outside the scope of the sirens. The need for supplementing systems were therefor underlined by both the Ministry of Justice and Public Security and the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. Also, on the European level, the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC), which was adopted in December 2018, made it mandatory for all EU Member States to implement public warning systems.  The Code stated that by June 2022, public authorities in all Member States must be able to send alerts to people’s phones in a determined area. Although not an EU member state, the EU and Norway are very much aligned on the main foreign policy issues, also here. In addition, as we know, both the Covid-pandemic and the war in Ukraine was a major catalyst for the adoption of population alerting systems. This resulted in increased allocations for several measures to strengthen civil preparedness across Europe. In Norway, the fast-tracking of the establishment of the Emergency Alert on mobile is one example. As part of the DIGeMERGE project, we used different methods and data in following the case study. In connection with the national test of Emergency Alert on mobile, we conducted a form of distributed data collection, by recruiting observers from different locations in Norway. These were sent some background information about the research project and the test, a guide for the observation itself, and a form for recording their observations. In total, the recruited observers observed approximately 200 others before, during and after the test took place, and taken as a whole these observations give some general impressions of how the test was received in the population. These findings are largely in line with the findings from the national evaluation carried out by the DSB after the test. In addition, meetings with the responsible individuals from the Directorate (DSB) and representatives from Oslo Police District, as well as documents relating to the test and implementation, serves as background information.