Croatia adopts single national system to alert public during crisis situations

Croatia has selected Intersec’s GeoSafe technology as the basis for a new national public warning system (PWS) to help keep citizens informed and protected during a crisis.

The decision sees Croatia adopting a best practice response to the European mandate that all EU member states must implement a modern digital public warning system by June 2022. Croatia has a population of more than four million but attracts almost five times as many tourists annually (19.6 million in 2019).

Communication channels

Croatia’s Ministry of the Interior and Civil Protection Directorate (MoI/CPD) was tasked with improving its current processes and introducing new communication channels to provide a single national system to alert citizens and visitors during crisis situations.

A key requirement was the ability to target specific segments of the population in real time using mobile messaging, dependent on their (changing) position relative to the crisis.

Using a combination of cell broadcast and location-based SMS, GeoSafe provides the technology that will enable the MoI/CPD to provide early warning and subsequent crisis communications in case of national emergencies such as floods, fires, epidemics or terrorist incidents.

“As part of an end-to-end solution that enables government and network operators to work seamlessly together from the outset, GeoSafe will deliver a public warning system for Croatia that will keep citizens informed and protected for many years to come”

Providing critical alert aggregation capability, its data processing will enable anonymised geolocation data to be used to provide the best possible information in an emergency, Intersec reports. The system will also help to track whether messages have been received and how people are responding.

According to Intersec, GeoSafe can differentiate between users of Croatian mobile networks and foreign national operators, so crisis communications can be sent in foreign languages, in real time, without violating personal data protection regulations.

“The Croatian government wanted the best technology possible in order to serve its population in a crisis. Simply complying with the European regulations regarding public warning systems was not enough: [it] wanted to innovate and prepare for the future,” said Ingolf Ruh, chief revenue officer for Intersec.

“As part of an end-to-end solution that enables government and network operators to work seamlessly together from the outset, GeoSafe will deliver a public warning system for Croatia that will keep citizens informed and protected for many years to come.”

Intersec partnered with Croatian companies King ICT and GDI to respond to the competitive tender. As one of four businesses bidding for the project, Intersec claims its consortium won by proving that its system was technically superior, offered robust data anonymisation processes for maintaining citizen privacy, and could deliver a cost-efficient, future-proof solution at both governmental and network operator level.

All three national telecommunications operators in Croatia have confirmed their participation in the project, thereby ensuring coverage of the entire Republic of Croatia, and enabling the government to reach up to 100 per cent of mobile device users.

Founded in 2004, Intersec is a location and mobility data solutions software provider. ts industry-focused products enable private and public organisations to turn geodata into actionable insights in the fields of smart cities, public safety and the management of connected object fleets (IoTs).