Who is amber ? And why does him going missing warrant an alert ?

I think in the US there are alerts (called amber alerts) for when people go missing in the hopes of increasing the chance of finding the person by raising awareness.

And you can’t opt out ??? Weird

There is an emergency function in all mobile phones that overrides everything else and blasts a loud sound and takes over the whole screen. It is there for emergencies, like when the people in Hawaii got told that the apocalypse has come by accident. In the NL you get one per month when they check the air raid alert sirens. The US uses them for alerts for missing children.

Your phone would also do it if you are in the area, no matter where you bought it or your carrier.

So the backdoors are all but confirmed ? Or is it some different tech ?

It’s not really a backdoor. It’s an Emergency Broadcast System. Nobody can access your phone through it, they just blast data out to everyone in a preconfigured way that your phone knows to receive and relay to you.

It’s not really any different than receiving a text message except that the text message comes with its own dedicated sound so that you know an emergency is happening.

Yep but someone mentioned you can’t opt out .