Status
Start
End
The project aims to develop a solution that will allow alerts sent through the EE-ALARM system to be sent in the preferred communication language of the receiver.
In Estonia, a location-based SMS threat-alert system has been in use since the beginning of 2023. With the present system, we can send different messages depending on the origin of the SIM card (e.g. Estonian vs international) but not according to language spoken by the receiver. According to the 2021 Census, Estonian is the mother tongue of 67% of the population, Russian is the mother tongue of 28% (the proportion of the Russian-speaking population is higher in Tallinn (over 40%)).
In addition to the local Russian speakers, there are a significant number of foreign students, international employees, as well as refugees who have not yet mastered proficient use of the Estonian language but use a local SIM-card. Considering the number of non-Estonian speakers (especially in bigger cities), generally, the SMS alerts are sent in at least three languages (Estonian, Russian, English). As we cannot differentiate the language of the SMS according to the preferred communication language of the receiver, all Estonian SIM-cards get at least three messages: either one in each language or one long message in three languages. This in turn makes the alerts less effective as people are bombarded with an influx of SMS in different languages (that can arrive at various intervals), less rapid and more costly as more SMS need to be sent at once.
The Estonian teleoperators have information on the preferred language of communication of their customers and are willing to share it for the purpose of making the SMS-alert more effective but in order to implement the changes, we need to make technical changes to the system.
DRM phases
