Emergency alert system obligations on mobile OS providers as well

Mobile operating system providers such as Google and Apple will now have to ensure that the disaster alerts sent by the government every year are automatically read out in at least four Indian languages, besides Hindi and English. The project aims to cover all 22 languages under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
The move is in accordance with the new amendment notified by the Department of Telecommunications on Wednesday to the Indian Wireless Telegraphy (Cell Broadcasting Service for Disaster Alerts) Rules, 2023.
This is due to a new amendment notified by the Department of Telecommunications on Wednesday to the Indian Wireless Telegraphy (Cell Broadcasting Service for Disaster Alerts) Rules, 2023.
These rules allow the government to send critical and time-sensitive messages for disaster management to all mobile devices within a designated geographical area through its Cell Broadcast Alert System. DoT and NDMA have been testing CBAS across the country and on each telecom service provider.
“3 (a) No smartphone or feature phone shall be sold in India without mandatory support to receive cell broadcast messages in all Indian languages as per the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India; (b) no smartphone or feature phone shall be sold in India without mandatory support for auto-readout in Indian accent of cell broadcasts received in Hindi and English; (c) manufactures, companies, software developers, or any other business entities involved in the manufacturing, importing, or development of operating software for smartphones or feature phones intended for sale in India, shall incorporate the auto-readout feature in Indian accent for four languages, other than Hindi and English, as per the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India every year from the date of this notification, until this feature is incorporated for all languages as per the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India,” one of the amendments says.
The April 2023 rules required all manufacturers who manufacture or sell smartphones or feature phones in India to support cell broadcast messages in English and Hindi. The message had to flash on the screen until it was acknowledged by the user; it had to play a sound or vibrate or flash a light for at least thirty seconds; and had to be stored in the device for at least 24 hours.
Through the Wednesday amendments, the emergency message has to play a sound or vibrate or flash a light for at least thirty seconds under normal circumstances, and for fifteen seconds when the device auto-reads the message.
For Aprajita Rana, partner at AZB & Partners, this is a welcome relaxation for manufacturers. “The onus is no longer only on manufacturers, and even software developers can implement these cell broadcast and auto readout features in the new devices being sold in India. The definition of software developers will cover entities who manage operating system of phones, typically sideload apps or provide in built apps in mobile phones. Since the objective of the rules is to ensure broadcasting of cell messages across devices being sold in India, it won’t be possible for software application providers like WhatsApp/Signal to achieve this objective, and therefore they won’t be subject to this obligation,” she said.
Under the April 2023 rules, the manufacturers had time until January 6, 2024 to ensure mandatory receipt of “extreme cell broadcast alert messages”, and to ensure read out of the cell broadcast messages in English and Hindi in an Indian accent. The 2023 Rules also required the manufacturers of handsets and mobile OS to “explore” the ability to receive and read out such messages in smartphones that were sold between April 2019 and April 2023.