Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment her Department made of the risk that alerts could expose survivors of domestic abuse relying on a concealed phone to seek help prior to issuing the Emergency Alert of 14 August 2026; and what prior engagement took place with domestic abuse charities on that risk.

Protecting victims of domestic abuse is always our priority. Both national tests of the Emergency Alerting capability were accompanied by a proactive public communications campaign informing the public of how to opt out of alerts, if they wished to do so.

This included extensive engagement with charities and groups representing vulnerable communities, such as Refuge. Advice on how to opt-out of emergency alerts is available at all times of GOV.UK/alerts, and is included in the websites of a number of charities and organisations that support victims of domestic abuse.

In a ‘live’ activation scenario such as this, such pre-planned public communications are difficult to ensure. As far as possible, the Cabinet Office engages with the media ahead of the transmission of an Alert to provide notice to the public.

The Cabinet Office recommends that victims of domestic abuse with concealed phones consider opting-out of receiving alerts either by turning off Emergency Alerts in their phone settings or by switching their phone off when it is not in use.