Google вимкнув детектор землетрусів після фейкової тривоги. Фото: Google / Depositphotos
On Friday, around 2 a.m., thousands of Android smartphone owners in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, among others, received false emergency alerts about a 5.5 magnitude earthquake. The alarm turned out to be fake, and Google was the main culprit.
The tech giant launched an earthquake detection network in 2020 that uses accelerometers on Android devices as a seismometer — first in California and then expanded to other countries. In addition to warnings, Google issues tips such as what actions to take in the event of an earthquake, such as turning off gas or leaving damaged buildings.
As noted by Android PoliceDespite the notifications users received on their smartphones, there were no official statements about the earthquake from Brazil’s Civil Defense, which runs the early warning system for natural disasters (and the earthquake itself), so Google had to apologize and find out what went wrong.
«The detector is not intended to replace any official or other public warning systems. On February 14, our system detected signals from devices near the coast of São Paulo and activated earthquake alerts for users in the region. We immediately disabled the alerts in Brazil and are currently investigating what happened. We apologize for the inconvenience and continue to improve our tools,» the company said in a comment.
The statement did not mention any refunds for smartphone owners, although the alerts seem to have caused panic among many people, given that earthquakes are rare in Brazil (at least compared to regions in the Pacific Rim).
«Got another warning (02:21), it’s extremely rare, the last one I remember was probably in 2009, but I hardly felt it», — writes one of the users who shared a screenshot of an earthquake alert.
