How to Turn off Korean Public Alert on iOS

by Rian

I’ve seen this question thousands of times. Korean authorities issue too many alerts, and many of them do not require immediate attentions. Amber alert, one which I would prefer to keep on, is quite meaningless in South Korea, as the alert reaches well past the city limit. Just few days ago, I received an Amber alert (technically equivalent of Silver alert in the United States) looking for a missing senior in next town over, about 15 km away. And during that evening, I received two more alerts looking for elders in Seoul.

If you are visiting South Korea, no doubt the alerts have been startling you. Or, if you have grown used it, you should be rightfully worried next alert might be actually important one. There is an option on iOS to control these alerts.

On Settings > Notifications > there is a section called “Korean Public Alert System” at the end of the installed apps list. It seems iOS has grouped all the missing people alert (Amber and Silver) under “Amber Alert”. Like I said previously, unlike the US counterpart, Korean authorities issue Amber Alert rather frequently, with wider reach than I believe necessary. There is also “Public Safety Alert” which reminds citizens of bad weather, public service outage, and so on. I suspect most people would prefer to read or watch more comprehensive news on their preferred weather channel over a public announcement. Please do keep the “Emergency Alert” on, assuming it will be reserved for actual emergencies.

It is certainly odd the authorities or the operators of these systems are pushing out far too many alerts to smartphones. If it is actually time-sensitive like how the original Amber alert is supposed to be, it should be reaching out specifically to the areas where the missing person is likely to be found. Unless where I happen to be living has suddenly become a black hole for all the missing people, please do stop the spams.