State AGs Urge Templates for Multilanguage Wireless Alerts

Attorneys general from states led by New York raised concerns about how the FCC addresses wireless emergency alerts in multiple languages, in a filing at the FCC in docket 15-91 (see 2307240045). “We are concerned that relying on machine translation to translate WEAs from English to other languages may result in inaccurate alerts,” the AGs said in a filing posted Monday: “It is critical that alerts be accurate. We therefore urge the Commission to adopt the alternative approach of requiring installation on cell phones of translated alert templates prepared for the National Weather Service and other federal alert originators by human translators.” The AGs also questioned whether the 13 languages, other than English, proposed by the FCC are enough. AGs from Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and New York City also signed the filing. The National Weather Service said with dedicated funding it could create templates in different languages for alerts. The "long-term goal is to automatically translate all alerts and forecasts into other languages,” the service said: “Experience with Spanish translation has shown that if NWS alerts use a limited set of words and phrases, the AI/[machine learning] process can automatically provide translated products with an accuracy exceeding 97%.”