The rules

• Each area has a baseline level that the editor sets from official assessments and expert statements, and reviews about once a month. The page shows when.
• A few clear official triggers can raise an area by themselves for up to 72 hours, and it is labelled “raised automatically”: the NCSC declaring a nationally significant cyber incident, or the grid operator warning of demand control or load shedding. The official MI5 terrorism threat level is also read automatically.
• Nothing from the press moves a level. Other automatic headlines are shown for information only.
• Level 5 is set automatically only for a very clear official signal that has held for over 6 hours: the official terrorism threat level at CRITICAL, or the government naming an attack on the UK while convening COBR. Until it has held, the area shows High. Real emergencies will reach you first through Emergency Alerts and the government, not through this page.
• This does not replace Emergency Alerts, the police, your council or the BBC.

How much to trust a source

• Official. Government, MI5, the NCSC, regulators and the grid operator.
• Established press. Wire services and major broadcasters that name their sources and publish corrections.
• Specialist or analyst. Useful and often early, but shown with more caution.

Privacy, in plain English

• No cookies. This site sets none.
• No ads, no analytics, no tracking. It loads no third-party scripts, fonts or images, and your browser is told to refuse them.
• Your household answers, ticks and display settings (text size, contrast and so on) are saved in your browser’s own storage, on this device only, so the page can remember them. They are never sent to us. “Change”, then “Delete my details”, removes them.
• If you add a postcode area, your browser asks two public services about it directly: postcodes.io, to find your area, and the Environment Agency, for flood warnings. They can see your internet address, as any website can. This site never sees it. Leave the postcode blank to avoid this.
• The page saves a copy of itself in your browser so it opens without internet.
• The site is hosted on GitHub Pages, which keeps standard server logs. We cannot see them.

Who runs this

Run by an individual, not a company. It is non-commercial, carries no advertising, and is not an official service. No government body endorses it.

Every summary in “Signals” is written by the editor from public reporting and links to the original. The automatic headlines come only from official, open-licensed feeds.

The only address for this site is wary.org.uk. Wary never sends emails, texts or notifications, and never asks you to log in or pay. If a message claims to be from it, it is not.

Corrections and questions: sean@wary.org.uk