Any Android or iOS phone located in the Region could emit a loud sound warning between 10 and 11 a.m. so there is no need to be alarmed
If your phone beeps loudly tomorrow while displaying a full-screen warning message, don’t be alarmed. You have not been the victim of a new ‘hack’, your terminal has not been infected by any strange virus and nothing is happening that you should worry about. It is only a test that the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies of the Ministry of the Interior is carrying out throughout Spain to evaluate its new system of alerts to the population. On November 2 it is the turn of the Region of Murcia, the Balearic Islands, Madrid, Aragon, Navarra and Catalonia.
The new National Alert Network, called ‘Es-Alert’, is part of the measures included in the Plan for Connectivity and Digital Infrastructures and the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Government of Spain, and has been developed with financing from European funds. It will serve to launch generalized and immediate alert messages to citizens’ mobile phones in the event of an emergency or catastrophe.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
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What is the National Alert Network?
A new system to notify the population in case of emergency or catastrophe through immediate messages to the mobile. -
Who sends the messages?
During the tests, the person in charge will be the Ministry of the Interior. Once consolidated, it will remain in the hands of the communities to alert specific areas of their territory. -
What will I see on my mobile?
The phone will beep at full volume for about ten seconds and vibrate. A text will be displayed on the screen explaining that it is a test and that 112 should not be called. -
Does it violate my privacy?
No. The system complies with the Data Protection Law, since it sends a message to all the terminals connected to the selected antennas without being able to collect the name, location or other information of the recipients.
“The system will allow us to define the message in each case and send specific texts depending on the type of alert it is and limiting them territorially,” explains the director general of Citizen Security and Emergencies of the Region of Murcia, Fulgencio Perona. “This time, the Ministry is going to do it throughout the Region of Murcia, but, if we put the case, for example, of the DANA that we have had in recent years and that usually affect the area of Vega del Segura and the Mar Menor , we could choose a specific area to which we want to warn, alert about the weather forecast and also give advice on how to act, “he says.
To define the sending of these messages, the General Directorate of Citizen Security and Community Emergencies will have tools to apply geographical limits that will affect the number of telephone antennas that emit the signal. Once sent, the phones that are connected to one of them will show the notice.
Does it work on all phones? Not in all, but yes in most. Both devices with Android, Google’s operating system, and iOS, that is, the one installed by Apple iPhones, are prepared to receive this type of emergency communications, although, in the case of the terminals of the bitten apple, it will depend on whether the feature is enabled in the user settings. To check its status, simply go to the ‘Settings’ menu, access the ‘Notifications’ section and go to the bottom area, where the ‘Civil Protection Pre-Alerts’ option is found.
“You have to remember, not because of this but because of traffic regulations, that if the phone rings while driving, obviously, you don’t have to pick it up or manipulate it,” Perona stresses.
Reinforcements on the 112
For days, people have been alerted to the massive sending of notices, both from the Government of Spain and by the Community, with information campaigns, but the fear that their arrival could confuse citizens has led the General Directorate of Citizen Security and Emergencies to take two extraordinary measures for tomorrow. In the first place, with the reinforcement of 112, which will have twice as many troops, according to what they assure from the Community. On the other hand, all the people who call the emergency telephone number during the development of the test will listen to a recording that will act as the first filter between true emergencies and calls related to the warning. “They will be warned that if the call is due to the alert, they should go to the website of the 112 Region of Murcia, where all the details about the test that is underway will be explained to them,” says Perona.
The reception of the messages from the new Civil Protection system does not imply in any case that the personal information of the users is exposed. Perona points out that citizens “do not have to have any concern about this, because neither names nor addresses are given and at no time do they have access to personal information.” It is a ‘blind’ system that only sends the alert to SIM cards that meet the defined parameters, without any further exchange of information.
‘Es-Alert’, developed between the Ministries of the Interior and of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, will continue its tests on November 10 in the Basque Country, Castilla y León, the Canary Islands and Ceuta. The ‘test’ will end on November 16 with Castilla-La Mancha, La Rioja and Melilla. If they are satisfactory, their next use will be due to real emergencies.
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