The upcoming test of Australia's new national mobile alert system has led to false claims and conspiracy theories being spread online.
The AusAlert system works by broadcasting a 10-second siren and message to compatible mobile devices including mobile phones, some smartwatches and tablets.
A planned test of the system will occur nationally on Monday, July 27, at 2pm AEST.
Some Australians have been discussing everything from whether the government is using the system to secretly track them, to what precautions people who have hidden phones for safety reasons should take.
ABC NEWS Verify spoke to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), which is delivering the test and alert system, as well as an independent telecommunications engineering expert to address some of these questions and concerns.
Concerns around privacy are central to much of the false claims being spread online.
AusAlert uses cell broadcast technology, not the SMS system that's still relied on by states to issue their warnings.
Mark Gregory from the School of Engineering at RMIT University said the technology simply identified devices inside a certain region at the time an alert would go out.
"What they're going to do is identify the base stations within those regions and then send messages to all the devices that are currently connected to that base station," he told ABC NEWS Verify.
"The telcos already know which devices are...
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