The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said on Jan. 8 that it has finished work on a series of language templates that local public safety officials can use to greatly expand their ability to deliver wireless emergency alerts in a variety of languages spoken in the United States.
Currently, the agency said, most mobile devices in the U.S. only support emergency alerts that are transmitted in English and Spanish language.
The language templates being provided by the FCC make it easier for public safety officials to send alerts in American Sign Language, and in the 13 most commonly spoken languages in the U.S. in addition to English and Spanish. Those are: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.
The Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system was created by Congress through the Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) Act in 2008, and became operational in 2012. Since then, the WEA system has been used more than 84,000 times to warn the public about dangerous weather, missing children, and similar situations. Wireless service providers participate in WEA on a voluntary basis.
The FCC said this week that “public safety officials will have the option to use these customizable multilingual template alerts in order to better warn their communities and save lives.”
The new templates cover the 18 most commonly issued and time-sensitive alerts, including alerts for hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes.
This week’s FCC action follows its adoption in late 2023 of rules that enable the multilingual alerts, which allow public safety officials to send them out without the need of a language translator.
“To achieve this, the rules require wireless providers that participate in WEA to install and store multilingual alert templates, provided by the Commission, on mobile devices,” the FCC said. “When an alert originator sends a template-based multilingual alert, the phone will display the relevant template in the subscriber’s default language, if available. Otherwise, the phone should display the alert in English.”
“The language you speak shouldn’t keep you from receiving the information you or your family needs to stay safe,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who added, “during an emergency, life-saving alerts should be accessible to everyone.”
“Our public safety partners have made it clear that one of the main barriers to multilingual alerting is the ability to translate time-sensitive messages into additional languages during crises,” she said on Jan. 8. “The multilingual Wireless Emergency Alert templates we announce today are a long-time coming and will make it so officials can reach more people with urgent messages and save lives.”
Michael George, associate administrator of the Office of National Continuity Programs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said his agency “supports the FCC’s effort to improve access to Wireless Emergency Alerts for individuals with limited English proficiency.”
