An ES-Alert error left thousands of Catalans without a torrential rain warning.

BarcelonaThe ES-Alert emergency alert system suffered a serious failure last Saturday when numerous Catalan users failed to receive the torrential rain warning issued by the Generalitat's Civil Protection Department early in the afternoon. The alert was intended for all active mobile phones in 37 of Catalonia's 43 counties, but a technical issue that has not yet been resolved left thousands of citizens without the crucial warning.

An emergency survey made by the author of this article on Sunday across five social networks, with more than a thousand responses, has revealed that practically all of those affected - more than 98% - are customers of the operator MasOrange, either directly through one of its commercial brands, or through a virtual mobile operator (MVNO) that uses its antenna network.

The affected operator is also the largest

In Spain, there are 61.7 million active mobile lines linked to phones, and the operator that manages the most is precisely MasOrange, with 25.6 million lines, 41.54% of the total according to the CNMC. This means that the failure potentially affected 4 out of 10 mobile phone users in the country, plus tourists who are customers of foreign operators who have a roaming agreement with MasOrange.

Among MasOrange's own brands are Orange, MásMóvil, Jazztel, Simyo, Yoigo, Pepephone, Euskaltel, and Virgin. We must also add the so-called virtual mobile network operators (MVNOs) that use the network of a company that owns them—in this case, MasOrange—and resell its services, often adding their own, such as fiber optic connections. This is the case with SomConnexió, Estabanell, Hablemos, Vera, Adamo, RaCCtel, and Suop. Customers of all the aforementioned brands are among those affected by the omission of the first alert message. Although Councilor Núria Parlon stated on Sunday that there were only two or three, the ARA has detected more than fifteen. However, all of them received a second message lifting the alert in the evening, indicating that the system was indeed capable of functioning correctly.

How the system works

ES-Alerts are not sent directly by the Generalitat (Generalitat), but by the State Civil Protection. Catalonia, like all other autonomous communities, accesses the Interior Ministry's platform via the web—developed in 2023 by an Indra subsidiary at a cost of €3.3 million—indicating the content of the message and which antennas it should be sent to, marking the affected territory on a map.

From there, the state platform transmits the order to the three mobile telephone networks in the State, which are those that have radio spectrum granted by the State under a concession through auction processes that provide significant income to the public treasury: MasOrange, Movistar, and Vodafone.

In Catalonia, there are around 7,500 mobile antennas installed in around 5,000 locations. Excluding the six northeastern regions not affected by the risk of torrential rain (the two Pallars, Cerdanya, Alta Ribagorça, Alt Urgell, and Vall d'Aran), the alert should have reached all switched-on mobile phones within coverage of some 7,000 antennas.

Late confirmation and unclear responsibilities

As of Wednesday, the Ministry of the Interior had not confirmed to the Catalan Civil Protection Agency that Saturday's initial alert was only correctly disseminated through the Movistar and Vodafone networks, but not through MasOrange. Paradoxically, on Saturday itself, hours after the initial alert failed to arrive, a MasOrange spokesperson assured ARA that they were not aware of any incidents.

Both the state Civil Protection service, ultimately responsible for disseminating the ES-Alerts, and the operator MasOrange have declined to explain the reasons for this incident. This silence is most likely explained by a desire to avoid assuming responsibility until the technical aspects of the failure have been clarified.

It should be noted that Telecommunications Law 11/2022 establishes in Article 75 that operators with networks are obliged to disseminate emergency alerts. If MasOrange received the order from the ministry but failed to execute it, it could be fined millions of euros. However, if it was the ministry's platform that failed to send the initial alert to MasOrange, the blame would lie with the provider of the sending platform.

In fact, there is a significant precedent: in February 2023, during the ES-Alert testing period—which was conducted in collaboration with the Generalitat (Catalan government)—a sending error was detected, which was supposedly corrected with a software update. Now it could have happened again.

Added media confusion

The incident caused confusion among citizens who did not receive the alert, but saw how others around them did. Many rushed to check if they had activated the reception of alerts on their mobile phones, when in fact it was not necessary: of the three levels of severity provided by the ES-Alert system, only the first is used, which is activated by default and cannot be deactivated.

However, numerous digital media outlets, driven by ignorance or by an interest in catching clicks, rushed to publish instructions for activating the reception of alerts at levels 2 and 3, which are optional but not used here. Adding to the confusion was an information document from the Department of the Interior that gave the impression that something had to be activated. This document has since been removed from the website and is under review.

Additional linguistic problems

The case also has a linguistic ramification. The Generalitat's Civil Protection Department explains to ARA that all ES-Alerts are written in three languages: Catalan, Spanish, and English. Since the platform's form for sending alerts only supports two, the Catalan and Spanish texts are combined into a single message, but the English version is included so that it appears on phones not configured in either of the other two languages, so that the alert is also understandable for tourists.

However, on this occasion, some citizens with their phones in Catalan received the alert in Spanish and English. This newspaper has images showing various language combinations, something that will need to be improved in the future.

Beyond uncertainty

The failure of the ES-Alert system raises questions about the reliability of a system that should be fully operational in emergency situations. Imma Solé, deputy director of emergency coordination for the Generalitat (Catalan government), explains to ARA that mobile alerts are not the only mechanism for informing citizens; there are also media outlets, especially digital media, radio, and TV; social media; and on-the-ground interventions by city councils, the closest government agency. However, with climate change intensifying extreme weather events, it seems essential to ensure the reliability of the mobile alert system, determining responsibilities, and preventing episodes like this from recurring.