Informing residents about hazards arising from the living environment is a state responsibility and one of the measures of civil protection. Internationally, the goal has been set that every person must receive an early warning in the event of danger. In Estonia, the active development of rapid warning began in 2018, and the first stage of the system was completed at the end of 2022.

As of 19 January 2023, in cases of events that endanger people’s lives, health, or the security of the state, and during government-level exercises, it has been possible to send an alert to the mobile phones of those located in a defined danger area. The law refers to this as an area-based rapid warning. A year later, the law was amended to grant the right to send warnings also during extensive military exercises.

The area-based rapid warning is transmitted as a location-based SMS (in Estonia, the sender name is EE-ALARM). The area-based rapid warning via SMS is one of the channels for delivering alerts. For the location-based transmission of such SMS, it is necessary to process the location data of mobile devices situated in the designated danger zone. The article analyses the resulting interference with the rights of recipients and the permissibility of such processing in the case of different types of events.

Helen Ojamaa-Muru, Adviser to the Chancellor of Justice, together with two co-authors, published an article on this subject in the journal Juridica.