A government-created terrorism alert app failed its duty of alerting people of an ongoing terrorist attack last night in Nice, France.
The app, named SAIP (Système d’alerte et d’information des populations), has received much criticism since the terror attack in Nice as it didn’t alert users of the attack until nearly 3 hours after a truck was driven through a crowd of civilians, killing at least 84 people.
The app was released by the French Interior Ministry in June due to concerns of terrorist attacks at the Euro 2016 football tournament and was designed to alert users of a terrorist attack within 15 minutes of its occurrence.
Users took to Twitter to express their dissatisfaction with the app. A user posted a screenshot of the first alert he received from the app at 1:30AM, nearly 3 hours after the terrorist attack:
Facebook’s check-in feature however performed much more effectively, and French politicans urged the people of Nice to abandon the government-created app and to utilise the Facebook feature to alert loved ones that they were safe.
It’s being reported that the app has suffered a “technical issue” by Anaêlle Grondin, a journalist for Les Echos, who received information relating to the apps delay from a government source.
An official comment from the French government has not been released at this time.
Lucas Nolan is a Journalism and Media student at Dublin Business School and a regular contributor to Breitbart Tech. He can be contacted via Twitter here: @LucasNolan_