It’s called Es-Alert. And it is also known as ‘reverse 112’. It is the emergency and catastrophe alert system that last Sunday at 2:26 p.m. received the millions of people who at that time had mobile coverage under the antennas of the Community of Madrid, regardless of whether or not they were residents of this region.
That message from Civil Protection, which was accompanied by
a very annoying persistent sound
that only turned off when the user accepted the notice, it wasn’t really an SMS. What’s more, no administration knows the numbers of the users to whom it is sent.
The system, which has been in operation for years in other countries and particularly in the United States, unlike SMS, does not cause the networks to collapse and, therefore, its messages are always immediate.
In Spain there are currently 20 centers that can issue these invasive mobile alerts, which correspond to the 17 communities, two autonomous cities and the National Center for Monitoring and Coordination of Emergencies (Cenem) of the General Directorate of Civil Protection. In the case of Sunday, it was the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies of the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso that activated the system after the AEMET red alert.
The system has been tested since 2022 and was just installed in June of that year throughout the network.
In October of last year there were already tests in Cantabria, Andalusia and Asturias, although always with prior warnings to the population to avoid scaring the population due to the loud whistle. In November, the tests were repeated in specific parts of the Community of Madrid.
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) was in charge of establishing the rules that alerts must follow at the European level.
“Level 1 cannot be opt-out,” says the ETSI documentation. That is, even if they are deactivated, if it is level 1, intended to protect the lives of citizens, the mobile will receive it.
The Population Alert System, the result of collaboration between the Ministries of the Interior and of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, was awarded to SIA, Indra’s cybersecurity company, for a total amount of 2.73 million euros from the recovery plan. The Government used an accelerated tender to which three companies participated. The most important factor among the award criteria was price, with 55%. Indra presented the cheapest offer.
This radio frequency warning system is used for public alerts in many countries around the world, such as the United States, Canada, Japan, Chile or Peru, especially to warn of the risk of earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and volcanoes. The EU asked its members to implement it before June 2022, when Spain finally activated it.
Until now, in most countries, ‘reverse 112’ has been very effective, although this system has a big blemish: in 2018, the Hawaiian authorities sent a warning of an imminent missile attack to the mobile phones of the entire population. The White House opened an investigation and the state governor, David Ige, ended up apologizing because an employee had “pushed the wrong button.”
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