Determine when wireless emergency alert has been received

Is it possible to determine when a device has received a wireless emergency alert (that is, when "Government Alerts" are enabled on the device and supported by the carrier)? I'm referring to emergency and AMBER alerts (i.e. those that the "Government Alerts" settings apply to, for reference see https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202743).


The scenario would be to alter the behaviour in an iOS App depending on whether there has been an wireless emergency alert issued or not. From other posts I understand that analogous access to information like SMS history is not possible from a third-party app, but if someone could confirm if this is/isn't possible for Government alerts, that would be fantastic. It's not the content of these alerts we would want to access, primarily just interested in determining if/when one has been received.

If you mean is content such as a user's SMS message activity private, yes.

As far as I know there’s no infrastructure for apps to receive these alerts. If such a mechanism were to exist, it would have to be specifically designed for that purpose. Repurposing other technologies is going to be tricky because of privacy and security concerns. Your Message Filter extension is a perfect example of this. It’s designed to do job A, and attempting to use it for job B won’t work because its sandbox is so tight.

My only suggestion is that you file an enhancement request describing your specific requirements.

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Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

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Determine when wireless emergency alert has been received
 
 
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