Digital signage at the service of emergency communication

A siren tells people that something is happening. It does not tell them what, where, or what to do. A screen network does — the nature of the event, the instruction to follow and the direction to take, in seconds, across every site, and including for people who cannot hear the alarm.

92/58/EECthe EU directive that names illuminated signs
for emergency evacuation
Every EU countryhas transposed it
into national law
Continuouswhat an evacuation signal
must be (Annex VII)

THE PROBLEM

A siren says something is happening. Not what to do.

An acoustic signal is designed to be heard everywhere and to be impossible to confuse with anything else. It is not designed to carry information — the EU definition is explicit: a coded sound released by a device, without the use of a human or artificial voice. Yet in the first seconds, the question that matters is not « is something wrong? » but « what exactly, and what should I do from where I am standing? »

Alert channel Who can trigger it What it carries Perceived without sound Perceived without a phone Targeting granularity
Siren / fire alarm system The operator, or automatic detection A signal, carrying no information No Not applicable The whole building
Public warning (cell broadcast) Government only — in France, the Prime Minister or a prefect A generic civil-protection instruction Yes No A geographic area around cell towers
Email, intranet, internal SMS Depends on internal organisation Detailed text, read later Yes No Distribution lists
Digital signage Any authorised person in the software Nature of the event + instruction + direction, as images Yes Yes Per screen, zone, building or site

Sources: Council Directive 92/58/EEC, Annex VII (acoustic signals). Public warning systems are required of every EU Member State by Article 110 of the European Electronic Communications Code (Directive (EU) 2018/1972); in France the system is FR-Alert, live since June 2022, and only the Prime Minister or a prefect can activate it.

Where the time is actually lost: pre-movement

Fire engineering literature splits evacuation time into detection, alarm, pre-movement and travel. Pre-movement — the gap between the signal and people actually starting to move — is the most variable component, because it depends on how well the signal is understood: recognising the alarm, seeking confirmation from a colleague, finishing the task in hand. An explicit message attacks that gap directly. EU law makes the same distinction when it separates a coded acoustic signal from verbal communication, defined as « a predetermined spoken message communicated by a human or artificial voice ».

DEFINITION

What is emergency communication?

Emergency communication covers every means of delivering, within seconds of a serious event, both information and an instruction to everyone present in a building or on a site: employees, visitors, contractors, students, patients or customers. It is distinct from crisis communication, which faces outwards — media, customers, authorities — and plays out over hours or days.

Outdoor totem pointing to the assembly point during an evacuation drill outside an office building

The four postures you need to be able to broadcast

  • ✓Evacuate — leave the building along a defined route towards an assembly point.
  • ✓Shelter in place — stay inside, move to an enclosed room, close openings, shut down ventilation.
  • ✓Enhanced shelter — seal the room, in the event of a toxic cloud or chemical release.
  • ✓Run or hide — in an intrusion, escape if escape is possible, barricade if it is not.

The four postures of the French unified PPMS — French Ministry of Education, Modèle de PPMS unifié, explanatory note, February 2024. Two of them are strictly opposite instructions: broadcasting the wrong one costs more than broadcasting nothing at all.

Where to place the screens

Lobbies and reception areas

The one point every visitor passes through, including those who do not know the building.

Corridors and stairwells

Where the decision about which way to go is actually made, at the moment it is made.

Workshops and production areas

Where noise drowns out the voice and phones stay in the locker room.

Break rooms and canteens

Gathering areas, often far from the workstations.

Meeting rooms and classrooms

Enclosed spaces that outside information does not reach.

Outdoors and assembly points

To direct people, count them, and announce the all-clear.

THE LEGAL FRAME

What the law expects from an alerting system

European law does not mandate digital signage. It does something more useful for anyone building a case: it names illuminated signs and spoken messages as means of emergency evacuation, and it requires signs to be supplemented whenever hearing or sight is impaired — including by the PPE your own procedures make compulsory.

Informative summary, current as of 7 August 2026. Directive 92/58/EEC has been transposed into national law in every EU Member State (European Commission, SWD(2017) 10 final), and two thirds of them apply stricter requirements — so check what applies to you. This page replaces neither the legal texts nor the opinion of your safety authority.

Illuminated signs are named for evacuation

Council Directive 92/58/EEC of 24 June 1992 on safety and health signs at work is explicit (Annex I, 2.2.1): « Illuminated signs, acoustic signals and/or verbal communication must be used where the occasion requires… to signal danger, to call persons to take a specific course of action and for the emergency evacuation of persons. » Annex VII adds that « the signal for evacuation must be continuous ».

When hearing or sight is impaired, signs must be supplemented

Same directive, Annex I, point 11: « If the hearing or the sight of the workers concerned is impaired, including impairment caused by the wearing of personal protective equipment, measures must be taken to supplement or replace the signs concerned. » This covers far more than disability — ear defenders on a production line put every operator in scope.

Evacuation, alarm systems and emergency power

The framework Directive 89/391/EEC (Article 8) requires employers to take the necessary measures for evacuation and to « inform all workers who are, or may be, exposed to serious and imminent danger of the risk involved ». Directive 89/654/EEC requires workplaces to be equipped with fire detectors and alarm systems as necessary. And 92/58/EEC, Annex I point 8: signs requiring power must have a guaranteed emergency supply in the event of a power cut.

France, as a worked example

French law goes further and shows what implementation looks like: fire drills « at least every six months », recorded in a register open to the labour inspectorate (art. R4227-39); an alarm that must be « made perceptible » whatever the disability of people who may be alone in a room (art. MS 64 §3); and, for every school, « at least two alert methods, known, audible to all and everywhere, and distinct from the fire alarm » (unified PPMS, February 2024).

The two sentences worth remembering

Directive 92/58/EEC, Annex I, 2.2.1: « Illuminated signs, acoustic signals and/or verbal communication must be used where the occasion requires… to signal danger, to call persons to take a specific course of action and for the emergency evacuation of persons. »

Directive 92/58/EEC, Annex I, point 11: « If the hearing or the sight of the workers concerned is impaired, including impairment caused by the wearing of personal protective equipment, measures must be taken to supplement or replace the signs concerned. »

HOW IT WORKS

One button, one alert, one message: how triggering actually works

It all rests on one principle: pre-configuration. In an emergency nobody writes a message — the message already exists, and all that remains is to launch it.

1

Prepare

Messages, visuals and instructions are built in advance in E-Manager and signed off by management or the safety officer: one version per event type, per site and, where needed, per language.

2

Authorise

E-Manager manages user rights individually. Every authorised person knows what they may trigger, and on which screens. Two-factor authentication protects account access.

3

Trigger

One click from E-Manager, on a computer, tablet or phone. Content prioritisation takes over the running playlist on the targeted screens — a building, a floor, a production line, or the entire estate.

4

Return to normal

When the broadcast ends, the regular schedule resumes. An all-clear message can follow immediately — something no siren can do.

Safety manager triggering an alert playlist from the E-Manager interface on a laptop

USE CASES

Twelve situations where the screen changes the outcome

Fire is the best-documented scenario, and far from the only one. Each situation below calls for a different instruction — often the opposite of the last one.

Fire and evacuation

The siren starts the movement; the screen names the affected zone, the route to take and the assembly point.

Intrusion, attack

The opposite posture to evacuation: escape, or hide and barricade. A single sound signal cannot make that distinction.

Shelter in place

Move to an enclosed room, close the openings, shut down ventilation and air conditioning, and wait for the all-clear.

Chemical incident, Seveso site

Alerting your own teams, but also the contractors and visitors on site, whom public warning systems cannot target building by building.

Severe weather

Relay the official warning level for your area alongside the employer’s own instruction: early closure, remote working, heatwave plan.

Infrastructure failure

Lifts out of service, water or power cut, an area made inaccessible: service information that prevents dozens of calls to reception.

Cyberattack and fallback procedure

In a ransomware event, email and the intranet go down. A screen network on separate infrastructure can remain the last internal channel still standing.

Health alert

Restricted access to a room, reinforced hygiene measures, a service temporarily closed: instructions that change fast and have to be seen.

Medical emergency and defibrillator

Point to the nearest defibrillator, call the trained first-aiders by name, guide the emergency services to the right floor.

People who cannot hear the alarm

Deaf and hard-of-hearing colleagues — and everyone wearing ear defenders, which EU law puts in exactly the same category. The screen is the only channel that carries them an instruction rather than just a flash.

Visitors, contractors, non-native speakers

People who know neither the building, nor the procedures, nor sometimes the language. A pictogram and an arrow work for everyone.

Statutory drills

Announce the drill, run it in real time, publish the debrief. A drill nobody understood is a drill wasted.

ENVIRONMENTS

One system, adapted to each environment

The constraints differ from place to place: noise on the shop floor, the age of the audience at school, continuity of care in a hospital.

Two workers in helmets and high-visibility vests looking at an alert screen on a factory floor

Industry and logistics

Noise drowns out the voice and phones stay in the locker room. Screens carry evacuation instructions, production alerts and restricted zones, right through to the loading bays.

Wall-mounted screen displaying an emergency instruction in a school corridor as a teacher guides students

Schools and education

The French unified PPMS requires at least two alert methods distinct from the fire alarm, able to carry four different postures. A screen network covers all four, with wording matched to the age of the students.

Digital signage totem displaying an alert in a hospital reception hall

Healthcare and public venues

An audience that does not know the building, continuity of service to protect, and an obligation to make the alert perceptible to everyone — including in rooms where someone may be on their own.

HONESTY

What digital signage does not replace

A credible alerting system starts by saying what it does not do.

Not the fire alarm system

Acoustic alarm systems remain mandatory. Digital signage complements them visually — it never substitutes for them.

Not public warning systems

Cell broadcast and sirens belong to the authorities. Your screens carry the site’s own instruction, which those channels do not.

Not your statutory drills

Every six months in France, twice a year in schools, plus the PPMS exercises. Screens help you prepare and record them — not skip them.

And it depends on power and hardware

A screen that is off alerts nobody. EU law is explicit on this point: signs requiring power must have a guaranteed emergency supply. Put the system in your risk assessment, with its degraded modes.

GETTING STARTED

Setting up emergency communication with EMITY

EMITY is a French digital signage software vendor: more than 7,000 connected screens, over 1,000 customer accounts, in more than 20 countries. Here is what an alerting setup actually rests on.

Scheduling and prioritisation

E-Manager schedules content and prioritises it: an alert broadcast takes over the playlist currently running.

Multi-screen, multi-site

A single dashboard for the whole estate, with targeting per screen, group, building or site.

Individual user rights

Rights are managed user by user, so you decide who can trigger what. Two-factor authentication on the Premium plan, SSO on Excellence.

Spoken and sound messages

Sound on top of image: stream a radio feed from the software, or add sound messages through the RadioShop partnership.

Master–slave synchronisation

Several screens coordinated with no perceptible lag: the same message, at the same instant, across a video wall or a display chain.

Playback continues if the internet drops

The E-Box player keeps showing the content stored locally when offline. An optional 4G key secures the link.

Hosted in France, and secured

OVH servers hosted in France, GDPR compliance, regular penetration testing and 99.9% guaranteed uptime on the SaaS platform.

Connectors and feeds

API, database, RSS, weather, traffic: alert content can be fed automatically. See our integrations.

Knowing who is on site

An evacuation assumes you know who is in the building. The guest book keeps the list of people checked in up to date.

Emergency communication is only one use of the same screen network: the rest of the year it carries your internal communication, your indicators and your service information. Discover the E-Manager digital signage platform.

FAQ

Emergency communication: your questions

The ten questions that come up most often, with the underlying legal texts.

No, and it should not. Acoustic alarm systems remain mandatory, and EU law requires workplaces to be equipped with fire detectors and alarm systems as necessary (Directive 89/654/EEC). Digital signage reinforces that signal visually and adds what it cannot carry: the nature of the event, the instruction and the direction.

It mentions illuminated signs and verbal communication, which is what a screen network delivers. Council Directive 92/58/EEC of 24 June 1992, Annex I, 2.2.1: « Illuminated signs, acoustic signals and/or verbal communication must be used where the occasion requires… to signal danger, to call persons to take a specific course of action and for the emergency evacuation of persons. » Annex VII adds that the evacuation signal must be continuous.

Directive 92/58/EEC, Annex I, point 11: « If the hearing or the sight of the workers concerned is impaired, including impairment caused by the wearing of personal protective equipment, measures must be taken to supplement or replace the signs concerned. » Note the scope: this is not only about disability — anyone wearing ear defenders is covered. In French public venues, art. MS 64 §3 goes further and requires the alarm to be made perceptible whatever the disability of people who may be alone in a room.

It depends on the country, since two thirds of Member States apply stricter rules than the directives. In France, drills and equipment tests take place « at least every six months » and are recorded in a register open to the labour inspectorate (art. R4227-39); schools run two fire drills a year plus two PPMS exercises — four in total.

No. Since Article 110 of the European Electronic Communications Code, every Member State operates one — FR-Alert in France, live since June 2022 — but they are triggered by government only. An employer or a head teacher cannot activate them. Their granularity is geographic, not organisational: they cannot target a building, a floor or a team, and they carry no internal instruction. The two are complementary.

The E-Box player keeps broadcasting the content already stored locally, so the running schedule is not interrupted. Triggering a new broadcast, however, requires the targeted screens to be reachable. An optional 4G key secures the link. This belongs in your risk assessment, alongside power supply — EU law already requires signs that need power to have a guaranteed emergency supply.

The people your organisation designates, and nobody else. E-Manager manages user rights individually: each account only reaches the broadcasts and screens assigned to it. Two-factor authentication protects access, and the Excellence plan adds single sign-on.

Seconds, once the playlist is prepared — the action is simply launching an approved broadcast. Actual timing depends on your network, the size of the estate and how sites are distributed. Good practice is to measure it during a statutory drill and record it, the same way evacuation time is recorded.

Yes. Because messages are prepared in advance, you can hold one version per language and rotate them, or assign a language to a given group of screens. Pictograms, directional arrows and floor plans also work without reading at all — which matters for visitors, contractors and non-native speakers.

No. The network already installed for internal communication, reception or service information carries the alert with no extra hardware. That is part of the point: the system is used every day, so everybody knows it, and it is not discovered on the day it really matters.

Build your alerting setup before you need it

A thirty-minute demo is enough to see how an alert playlist is prepared, triggered and closed. The trial is free for three months, with no commitment.