The Cometa system, which manages the anti-abuse control bracelets, recorded a new technical incident this Tuesday that ended up causing an overload of the service for several hours. The ruling forced the Ministry of Equality to implement the emergency protocol to guarantee the safety of the approximately 4,500 women who use these devices. In recent months, these bracelets have been talked about due to the problems they have caused. And while they promised to solve a big problem, they are also generating other parallels.
What exactly has gone wrong. This last problem has been located in a router that distributes alert messages according to the type of incident (entry into exclusion zones, manipulation of the device, low battery, etc.). According to Igualdad, around 10% of these messages have generated recurring incidents that have collapsed the system.
The failure was detected at 4:30 in the morning and the service did not regain stability until 5:25 p.m., although complete normalization did not arrive until 9:00 p.m. During this time, the panic button, emergency calls and Bluetooth alerts remained operational, according to the ministry.
The Government’s response. From the moment the incident was detected, the protocol planned for these situations was activated: the 4,500 users of the service received text messages informing them of the problem and the Security Forces and Bodies were alerted to reinforce surveillance.
Minister Ana Redondo and the Government delegate against Gender Violence, Carmen Martínez-Perza, traveled to the headquarters of the Cometa service and maintained direct contact with the Vodafone-Securitas UTE, the company responsible for the system. “No victim has been unprotected at any time during these hours of crisis,” Redondo said in a message broadcast on social networks.
A device that accumulates problems. This incident comes just two months after the State Attorney General’s Office uncovered an even more serious error: during the transfer of management from Telefónica to Vodafone, access to the geolocation data of hundreds of attackers was lost for several months. This caused, according to the annual report of the Prosecutor’s Office, “a large number” of dismissals and acquittals in cases of violation of restraining orders, since the judges could not have the necessary evidence.
That episode generated a strong political controversy, with the PP calling for the resignation of Redondo, who defended that the victims were never in danger and criticized the “lack of prudence” of the Prosecutor’s Office in making the ruling public without providing concrete data.
A technology in question. What was presented at the time as an effective technological solution to protect victims of gender violence is showing that it also has important limitations. The Government has announced that the next tender for the service, scheduled for spring, will include “technical improvements” and that an audit is currently being carried out to check whether Vodafone is complying with the contract. “We will investigate until the end and, if necessary, we will take the appropriate actions,” Redondo warned.
Beyond technology. Despite the incidents, anti-abuse bracelets are still considered a valuable tool. Since their implementation in 2009, no woman wearing one of these devices has been murdered. The ministry insists that the protection system goes beyond technology and includes an “institutional network” of professionals that guarantees the safety of victims. However, we have also witnessed that technology fails, and it is precisely in these cases that we must prevent this from happening at all times.
Cover image | EFE (Herbert Neubauer) and National Police
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