At 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, the mobile phones of those in Britain will sound an “alarm” accompanied by a vibration and a message for “emergency” (s.b. like 112 notifications).

This is the new warning system that the British government wants to test today to warn citizens in emergency situations (fires, floods or other serious dangers).

“Wherever you are, on Sunday at 3:00 p.m. (local time) you will receive the emergency notification,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted. “You will receive a message on your mobile phone screen, accompanied by a beep and a vibration lasting up to 10 seconds. You won’t need to take any action,” he explained.

The sound alert will be activated even if the mobile phones are on silent mode.

“Keep calm and carry on”, this is just a “test”, Downing Street underlines, responding to critics with the famous British slogan from the Second World War era.

Britain’s Daily Mail wrote on Tuesday: “What genius thought it was a good idea to terrorize the entire country at 3:00 p.m. of a Sunday?”

Drivers have been warned not to pick up their phones during the test, and those who do not wish to receive the alerts can turn them off through their device settings.

The organizers of the World Snooker Championship have announced that they will take a break shortly before 3pm, so that the “alarm” does not disrupt any of the matches hosted in Sheffield, northern England.

London theaters will ask audience members to turn off their mobile phones completely so the ‘alarm’ doesn’t go off in the middle of a performance.

Judy Edworthy, professor of psychology at the University of Plymouth (southern England), emphasizes that the implementation of an emergency notification system is a positive development, even if its premiere surprises some. As long as “citizens look at their phones, read the message and act on the instructions in it, we can say it will have worked,” he told Britain’s PA Media (formerly the Press Association).