The AlertCops application of the Ministry of the Interior now includes a new alert to immediately report cases of squatters – the illegal occupation of homes.
 This app will now allow affected people, owners, neighbours or any other user who detects a case of illegal occupation to immediately and discretely bring the facts to the attention of the National Police and Civil Guard.
This new functionality of AlertCops has been launched in parallel with the new action protocol established by the Secretary of State for Security against illegal occupation of buildings for the National Police and the Civil Guard, which standardizes and improves the police response.
Cases of illegal occupation of houses
To warn of this type of crime, the user will have at his disposal the icon “illegal occupation of a house”, which he must press whether he is a victim or a witness. As with the rest of the alerts in the app, users can also attach photos or videos about the event.
The alerts will be sent to the police centre closest to the user where the action protocol will be activated. This protocol indicates, among other issues, that, in the face of house searches, the National Police and the Civil Guard may proceed to immediate eviction without the need to request judicial measures in the event of flagrant crime.
Recommendations and preventive messages
Likewise, the protocol establishes that the State Security Forces and Bodies will carry out treatment, information and advice actions to the victims of this type of case, for which they will take advantage of the contact and information channels for the citizen of their official web pages, networks social networks and AlertCops itself, which will collect recommendations and preventive messages and general information on how to act in case of being victims of this type of crime.
AlertCops is a service provided through a free application on mobile devices, which provides a direct channel with the State Security Forces and Bodies to communicate an event of which one is a victim or witness such as robberies, cases of gender violence or, from now on, the illegal occupation of houses.
