Public Warning System for Traveling Citizens

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• Public warning to citizens AND tourists is a priority for the country where incidents happen

• And, for other countries whose CITIZENS are traveling in that country

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Why register?

• In a crisis situation such as a natural disaster or severe political instability, the Foreign Ministry often takes an active role in providing information and assistance to the country’s citizens in the affected area.

• Additionally, such reach is also used to provide citizen services to citizens traveling abroad if they need help from the local embassy.

– Travel Warnings are issued to recommend postponing travel to a country because of ongoing civil unrest, dangerous conditions, terrorist activity, etc.

– Travel Alerts are normally issued for short-term, fast-breaking events that could pose significant risks to citizens and could affect their travel plans. Examples might include an election season that is likely to have many strikes, demonstrations, or disturbances,

a health alert like an outbreak of H1N1, or

evidence of an elevated risk of terrorist attacks.

when these short-term events are over, normally the alerts are canceled.

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What happens if there is change in plans?

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What if I don’t register? Do I still get help?

Key challenges

little knowledge about who is distressed

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how to communicate with the people concerned

Language barriers for tourists

WHO?HOW?WHAT?

Key system design inputs

• Find out who is distressed– Localized information available with roaming sim cards

• Figure out how to communicate with them– Send text messages or voice calls

• Overcome language barriers– Communicate in your national language

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Example of such a system: TAS

• Localizing and communicating with

national citizens travelling abroad

• Real time overview of the country’s

inhabitants travelling abroad

• Communicate with travellers in one

or several countries

• No need for pre-registration/

subscription

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Defining the scale of actions needed to assist citizens affected by an emergency in a foreign country or region

How does such a system work?

Select countries

• Identify the country /countries where travellers need to be alerted

Identify Travellers

• Check the number of travellers in the selected region using their native SIM cards

Define Contents

• Create and review the alert/ information message

Send Alert/ Notification

• Send SMS to all travellers identified

Monitor Alert Status

• Monitor responses

• Resend if needed

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Usage examples: Arabic Spring

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Earthquake in Chile

• February 27th, 2010 Earthquake

• According to data generated by UMS TAS – approx. 1000

Norwegian travellers were in Chile

• Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs used TAS to arrange the

evacuation

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Earthquake in Nepal

• April 25th, 2015 Earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8Mw

• Governments tried to communicate with their citizens

– Provide information where assistance could be obtained

– Arrange evacuation

• Norwegian Ministry Foreign Affairs assumed approx. 200 travellers were in

Nepal

• According to data generated by UMS TAS – 600 Norwegian travellers were

in Nepal

– Required evacuation efforts differ significantly

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Key challenges: Privacy and confidentiality concerns

• Ease: Citizens should not be required to register anywhere

• Privacy: Individual locations should not be shared

• Confidentiality: No confidential data should leaves the local networks

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Learnings & Recommendations

• When a crisis situation occurs, important information often struggles to reach affected people. Both due to the difficulty in distinguishing who has been affected and the limited methods to alerting.

• Ensuring safety of traveling citizens as important as citizens and tourists in the country

• Individual embassies should work with local authorities to handle such situations to overcome language barriers for tourists.

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anand@ums.no | +1 305 922 3825