New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading a coalition of 16 attorneys general and New York City seeking to have the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expand access for Wireless Emergency Alerts from the current 13 available languages to at least 25, with human translation instead of machine translation.
The alerts are sent to cell phones and automatically reach 75% of all active cell phone users. However, the attorneys general argued that that only using machine translation applications can result in unreliable messaging ”“ they cited a recent joint study by UCLA and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center found that the accuracy rate of machine translations from English could be as low as 55% and only as high as 94%.
“In just the last few weeks, New Yorkers have been hammered by violent storms, flash flooding, and extreme heat, and receiving Wireless Emergency Alerts during these emergencies can be the difference between life and death,” said James. “The next severe weather event is a matter of when, not if. It is critical that this potentially lifesaving information be transmitted to the millions of New Yorkers ”” and Americans nationwide ”” who are not proficient in English.”
In determining the languages to be used, the attorneys general called for support of all languages spoken by at least 300,000 people in the U.S. over five years old ”” a total of more than 25 non-English languages. The coalition also urged FCC to consider adding additional languages every few years based on the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.
