U.S. legislation may soon expand government emergency alerts from television and radio to streaming services like Netflix and Spotify. Called the Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement (READI) Act, the legislation has bipartisan support, and is being put before the Senate by Democrat Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Republican John Thune of South Dakota.
Said Senator Schatz of the need for the legislation, “When a missile alert went out across Hawai‘i last year, some people never got the message on their phones, while others missed it on their TVs and radios. Even though it was a false alarm, the missile alert exposed real flaws in the way people receive emergency alerts.”
The bill would also require emergency alerts from the president or FEMA to be repeated and would make it illegal for individuals to opt out of federal emergency alerts on their phones. “Our bill fixes a number of important problems with the system responsible for delivering emergency alerts,” said Schatz of the bipartisan legislation. “In a real emergency, these alerts can save lives so we have to do everything we can to get it right.”
Source:
https://gizmodo.com/netflix-and-spotify-might-be-required-to-issue-emergenc-1839348553
