"Unacceptable": Call to sing the Palatinate anthem via the Katwarn warning app
During the DĂĽrkheim sausage market, thousands of people were asked via Katwarn to sing the Palatinate anthem. The district administration says it was a mistake.
(Image: Ken stocker/Shutterstock.com)
At the beginning of the week, an appeal to sing the Palatinate anthem was sent to around 7.000 people in the district town of Bad DĂĽrkheim in Rhineland-Palatinate via the Katwarn app, which is intended for issuing warnings to the population. The local district administration admitted this and added that Hans-Ulrich Ihlenfeld (CDU), the district administrator responsible for disaster control, described the incident as a mistake that should not be repeated. The request should actually only have appeared in a so-called theme subscription of the application, which had been set up for the Wurstmarkt, a folk festival taking place there. The message about the "special case of the Wurstmarkt," which was sent directly via Katwarn instead, had not been agreed upon with the security authorities.
"The text that was sent out is unacceptable."
As the district administration explains, the Katwarn app has for some time offered the option of setting up channels to provide locally limited information about events such as trade fairs or folk festivals. The aim is to inform visitors who can subscribe to these themed subscriptions by scanning a QR code. These are low-threshold notifications, for example, if an exit is blocked. Bad DĂĽrkheim had set up such a channel for the sausage market and wanted to ask those present to sing the Palatinate anthem together for a television recording. However, this went badly wrong and thousands of people instead received it as an apparent warning of a disaster.
The district's fire and disaster control inspector (BKI) assures that measures will be taken to prevent a repeat. However, it is currently not technically possible to disseminate such information outside of Katwarn. Thematic subscriptions are considered a good idea. The Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems, which is responsible for the development of Katwarn, has therefore spoken of unlawful use of the application. "The text sent out is unacceptable," the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of the Interior told the dpa news agency in response to an inquiry. All warning systems are explicitly reserved for warnings in crises and situations of damage or danger, as well as for safety-related information.
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"Katwarn is and remains a useful and important tool for reaching people in the affected area in the event of a disaster," adds District Administrator Ihlenfeld: "It must not be used for such messages under any circumstances." All users must be aware at all times that Katwarn messages are reserved for serious incidents that must be heeded and, in some circumstances, responded to. "A camera crew at the sausage market has no business being there." According to the district, numerous citizens have complained about the warning message. Ihlenfeld sees this as a sign that the application is being taken seriously and registered, according to SWR: "In that respect, there is a silver lining."
(mho)
