On January 8, 2025, the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (“PSHSB” or “the Bureau”) released a Report and Order outlining key steps to improve Wireless Emergency Alerts (“WEA”) accessibility for individuals with limited English proficiency and those with hearing disabilities. These enhancements aim to ensure diverse communities receive timely and accurate emergency communications, improving public safety across the United States.
Key Actions and Features:
- Alert Templates
- The Bureau requires Participating Commercial Mobile Service (“CMS”) Providers to support fillable multilingual and English templates for the below 18 alerts that allow alert originators to customize templates with event-specific details, such as the sending agency, location, time, and protective action guidance.
- Tornado emergency, tornado warning, flash flood emergency, flash flood warning, severe thunderstorm, snow squall, dust storm, hurricane, storm surge, extreme wind, test alert, fire, tsunami, earthquake, boil water, avalanche, hazardous materials, and 911 outage.
- The templates are available in English and 13 additional commonly spoken U.S. languages, including Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), French, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.
- Non-fillable American Sign Language (“ASL”) video templates are also required to be supported by Participating CMS Providers and must feature messages signed by Certified Deaf Interpreters (“CDIs”) for clarity and cultural accuracy.
- The English Templates are located in Appendix C of the Order and the Multilingual Templates and ASL translation link are located in Appendix D of the Order.
- The Bureau reiterates the FCC’s decision that the multilingual templates adopted are optional for use by alerting authorities.
- The Bureau requires Participating Commercial Mobile Service (“CMS”) Providers to support fillable multilingual and English templates for the below 18 alerts that allow alert originators to customize templates with event-specific details, such as the sending agency, location, time, and protective action guidance.
- Implementation
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- Implementation is set within a 30-month timeline, with technical standards addressing legacy device compatibility and formatting challenges. The Bureau also defers to the WEA standards development process to decide upon the technical implementation details for the fillable alerts, including, for instance, how the [TIME] field should be populated and formatted, and how the [LOCATION] field should be structured, among other things.
- WEA-capable devices must display multilingual templates alongside the English version, with the multilingual template shown first to improve comprehension.
- ASL Accessibility
- The adopted ASL templates prioritize grammatical structures and conceptual accuracy, while limiting fingerspelling and excluding visual aids to enhance clarity during emergencies.
- WEA-capable devices must display the non-fillable ASL templates alongside a fillable English template, as is required for the 13 supported languages. Placing the English template after the ASL alert enhances public safety by balancing the needs of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, enabling tailored emergency information, and aligning with current technical capabilities.
- Rejection of Machine Translation and Generic Alerts
- The Bureau declines to explore machine translation due to concerns about accuracy and public safety risks associated with automated translation systems.
- The Bureau declines to adopt generic evacuation or shelter-in-place templates, emphasizing that specific context enhances public response.
- Education and Continuous Improvement
- The Bureau will provide user guides on how to set device language preferences.
- The Bureau will conduct periodic assessments to refine templates and expand language support based on public interest and feedback.
The rules are effective 30 months from the date of publication in the Federal Register.
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