The Camino de Santiago is an experience that offers spirituality, adventure, landscape, culture and safety. All pilgrims on any of the routes have full security coverage thanks to the presence of police officers and Civil Guard, even on horseback, patrolling the trails as if they were other pilgrims. For a few years now, you can even have the State Security Forces and Corps on your mobile phone, thanks to the Alertcops application. In this article we are going to tell you what it is and why you should download it.
The Camino de Santiago was not very safe in the old days…
The Camino de Santiago was in its beginnings a very dangerous journey, because in the Middle Ages the roads and paths were plagued by thieves, murderers, swindlers, false or abusive collectors of portages, etc.. In addition, the Muslim advance into the Iberian Peninsula was another constant threat. In many cases, pilgrims did not even return home alive. The creation of military religious orders, such as the Order of the Temple in 1118 and many others, a priori as a fight against the Muslims, came about because of the threat they posed to Christians and the Holy Places, although later they would also protect pilgrims.
… but today it is very safe to do any Jacobean route.
Times (fortunately) have changed, and we can find few threats on the Camino. You might get blisters or maybe some tendonitis, but you won’t find muggers on the Camino these days. Of course, there are always exceptions and in recent years there have been some notorious cases of homicide on the Camino de Santiago, such as that of the pilgrim Denise Pikka Thiem, but these are very specific events.
If you have ever done the Camino de Santiago you may have seen National Police patrolling, even Guardia Civil on horseback. Both the Police and the Benemérita offer personal assistance on the Camino and give specific advice to pilgrims. In addition, you can have them with you on the Camino, as if they were a fellow pilgrim. If you have a mobile phone and an internet connection, you can download the AlertCops application and be fully supported and safe. Shall we download it and see what it’s all about?
What is AlertCops?
AlertCops is a free mobile application that gives you the ability to send alerts and warnings to any threat, accident or crime that you are suffering or witnessing. It is available for Android and iOS devices.
The application is not exclusively for pilgrims, but also for all citizenship, and allows you to report all kinds of situations, such as theft, robbery, assault, vandalism, damage, aggression, gender violence, etc., even with photographs and videos. In addition, it has a feature or guardian mode, which allows you to share your location with people of your choice, such as family and friends, and even rescue services, in case something happens to you. It also works in reverse, and you can also see the position of your protégés. More functions such as chat or the sending of public safety alerts are available in the application.
How does it work?
Once downloaded, you open it and choose language, and we proceed to the registration, providing your full name and accepting terms and conditions, as well as sharing your location. Then you validate your phone using a code sent to you by SMS and then choose the security level you prefer, high, medium or low.
We continue by choosing a guardian, which can be a personal contact or the security forces themselves, and then you can activate the “SOS button”, which allows you to send an immediate warning to your guardians. You can then set the application as a background task to optimize battery usage, and finally you can run a test alert to verify that the application is working properly. With the application already configured, you access the menu where all the options and functionalities appear: alerts, chat, guardian, map and so on.
Prevention is better than cure
If you want to know more, visit their web where you can see a video demonstration of its usefulness and learn about success stories thanks to the application. With it, your pilgrimage will be much safer.
We insist, the Camino de Santiago is not dangerous, but it never hurts to carry this extra security. We have it on our devices and we are updating it, although it is true that we have never needed to use it, fortunately. Thanks to her, our way will always be a good way!
Leave A Comment