La app AlertCops en el Camino de Santiago: la importancia de comunicar un Camino seguro

It is difficult to imagine a pilgrim without a mobile phone. But do pilgrims know thatthere is an app that guarantees them a safe journey? This project aims to diagnose thedegree of knowledge that pilgrims have about the existence of AlertCops, the publiclyowned mobile application that allows citizens to immediately contact the Police or theCivil Guard to alert them of any criminal situation, and that has a specific functionalityfor the Camino de Santiago. In a research project carried out by the Mar Durán and funded by this Chair in 2019 onthe perception of safety on the Camino, it was warned that 80 % of people would not dareto pilgrimage alone. The research proposed aims to alleviate this situation and contributeto the search for antidotes to the feeling of fear and vulnerability that the pilgrimsobserved. To verify the level of knowledge about the existence of AlertCops and quantifythe possible use of its functionalities to determine how this data influences the perceptionof being on a safe route, a survey was carried out on 100 pilgrims. The interpretation ofthe quantitative data obtained was complemented with qualitative interviews with theadministrative managers of the app. The starting hypothesis was verified and it is diagnosed that AlertCops is an app unknownto the majority of pilgrims, so it is unavoidable to transfer these results to both theNational Police Force and the Guardia Civil, and also the Jacobean Council and theFederation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago, to implement actionsin their communication policies that increase the AlertCops knowledge rates amongpilgrims, since the Camino de Santiago must not only be safe, but it must be known thatit is.