In February 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkiye, killing 53,537 people and injuring more than 107,009. Google's Android Earthquake Alert (AEA) system was found to have failed to issue serious "Take Action" warnings to more than 4 million people living in the affected area.
According to a BBC report, the AEA system only issued this highest warning to some Android users' devices and also issued a less serious "Be Aware" warning. The Take Action warning would sound a loud alarm and could override the Do Not Disturb setting on Android devices.
In a research paper published by Google in the journal Science, they found that the AEA algorithm only predicted earthquakes of magnitude 4.9. Due to the real-world failure of AEA, Google has changed the algorithm used to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
AEA was introduced in 2020, turning billions of Android devices around the world into earthquake sensors. Since its introduction, it has been detecting and providing earthquake warnings on Android devices, including in Malaysia.