Civil protection warning messages took on unusual importance at the beginning of this month when, faced with the threat of torrential rains in the center of the peninsula, ASEM 112 (Madrid’s Security and Crisis Agency) proceeded to mass-distribute two warning messages (one in Spanish and the other in English ), with the intention of alerting all people, who were in the Community to take the necessary measures to protect themselves from a potentially very dangerous situation. The heavy rains arrived a few hours later and hit mainly the southern area of ​​Madrid (I’m talking about the geographical scope of the said warning, I know that DANA hit a large part of the peninsular territory), which proves that the issuing of the said warning was a complete success.

Despite the fact that this system had already been publicly announced and that its tests had been carried out at the end of last year, the ignorance of many and the stupidity and malice of a few caused what should have been hailed as an example of a security system working properly, however, it has become an unwarranted criticism for the alleged invasion of privacy, which in some cases has been compared to totalitarian measures.

Now that the situation seems to have calmed down a bit, the Ministry of the Interior of the Catalan Generalitat reports that Tomorrow, Thursday the 14th, there will be tests where people in and around Barcelona will receive a warning notice from Civil Protection. Of course, there is nothing to worry about as it is only a test, but it is important that people know this to avoid unnecessary shocks and scares, and for those people to familiarize themselves with how this system works.

Specifically, these are the areas whose antennas will broadcast Civil Protection warning messages, and the scheduled times for them:

• Vallès Oriental, Maresme, Sant Adrià del Besòs, Badalona and Santa Coloma de Gramenet: from 10 hours
• Barcelona: from 11 o’clock
• Western Valles: from 12 o’clock
• Baix Llobregat and l’Hospitalet de Llobregat: from 1 p.m

Among the recommendations of the Generalitat and Civil Protection, the most notable is undoubtedly the one concerning those people who plan to drive during these hours. It is true that the sound of these alerts can frighten and become quite annoying, but this should not distract from driving, although of course it is necessary for these people to be warned about this test in advance.

Furthermore, given the possibility that some of the criticisms of this system will be reproduced, criticisms that we already heard earlier this month in Madrid, I will remember two key points on which 90% of the criticism is based.

• Privacy: the civil protection alert message system does not violate the privacy of the people who receive the messages. For its delivery, antennas located in the affected geographical environment are selected and the cell broadcast function is used, which delivers it to all devices connected to it. The information service is an unacknowledged push service, that is, the sender of the message will never know about the devices (and therefore their data) to which the message was delivered.
• Versatility: I came to read how this service compares to an Orwellian nightmare or V for Vendetta’s universal broadcast system, a feature that allows users to send messages whether they want to or not. This is also not true, as we said in the posts I linked earlier, users can enable and disable receiving this type of notification on their devices. Personally, I think it’s silly to disable it, but hey, for color taste.