Several Manitobans took to social media to complain after an Amber Alert from southern Ontario was pushed to their smartphones just after 10:30 pm on
Peel Regional Police had issued the Amber Alert after an 11-year-old-girl, Riya Rajkumar, had not been returned home after a visit to her father. Police in Ontario then issued a second alert about an hour later cancelling the original alert after the body of the girl was found in her father’s home. The father, Roopesh Rajkumar, was captured by Ontario Provincial Police just after midnight near Orillia, Ontario.
911 emergency operators in Winnipeg, Toronto, Peel Region, York Region and other jurisdictions received a number of calls from people upset with the fact they received the notification or wondering if it was some sort of scam.
Police in Winnipeg say that although many people were upset with receiving the alerts calling 911 tied up the emergency operators and potentially prevented real emergency calls from getting through.
The Alert Ready system is a Canada-wide alerting system that sends critical and possibly life-saving messages to Canadians through television, radio and connected wireless devices like smartphones. The service is automated and cannot be opted out of.
Although the system has mostly been used for Amber Alerts since coming online last year it can potentially be used to send notifications of urban fires, natural disasters, biological warnings, hazardous situations, terrorist threats and civil emergencies.
