Bomb alerts, the Interior Ministry: unreliable serial threats, evacuations only if necessary and reconnaissance of sites at risk

The Ministry of the Interior changes its strategy against false bomb scares: no automatic evacuations due to threatening emails sent en masse, preventive reconnaissance of potentially exposed structures and a national information coordination system to prevent a simple communication from paralyzing schools, public offices and essential services.

It is the new security device outlined by the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi in a directive addressed to Prefects and Quaestors after the barrage of threats that hit Italian schools. The objective is twofold: to guarantee the safety of people and to prevent messages without concrete elements of danger from causing evacuations, interruptions of services and unjustified mobilization of the police.

The directive introduces a precise criterion for evaluating reports. «A threat that presents a manifestly serial character is to be considered unreliable», establishes Piantedosi, referring to «identical or substantially similar» messages coming from the same source and addressed indiscriminately to numerous recipients.

Seriality, however, does not automatically exclude a real danger. Threats must be promptly reported to the police and subjected to verification. Further security measures may be justified by the discovery of suspicious objects, anomalies also detected through video surveillance, previous episodes or information relating to a specific objective.

The principle is to adopt interventions proportionate to the actual risk conditions.