In the common areas on the ground floor of one of the Pozuelo headquarters buildings, next to the garden, several employees are playing a game of table football. A few meters away, two others give their all to ping-pong, while a third parks his bicycle in a space designated for those who prefer to pedal to work. They are some of the 4,500 employees who, in shifts, give life to the Madrid headquarters of Securitas Direct.
The private security company turns 30 at an unbeatable time in business: from having one million clients in 2018 it has doubled its volume by the end of 2023. “Here is the heart behind the little gadget that each of those clients puts at home or at your business,” says Raúl Serrano, Director of Operations at Securitas Direct Spain.
The 'little thing' is not a euphemism. In his 27 years in the company he has not only witnessed the take-off of the security sector in Spain. He has also seen how technology advanced to reduce the size of devices and greatly dignify their appearance. Those from three decades ago were real hulks and functionally limited. Now they are much more discreet and efficient. “The first ones we installed in clients' homes were with cables. If there was any incident, the only way to contact that address to see if there was a thief was to call by phone and ask out loud. Jumping to wireless was a revolution,” recalls Serrano.
Over time, devices with real-time sound and image capture arrived. The criminal is detected simply by wandering around the area. Serrano takes us to a room where the different terminals used in these three decades of history are displayed. It starts with those from the late 90s, crude and with rudimentary keyboards. At their side, the current systems, discreet, elegant, with anti-inhibition technology and capable of capturing audio and video with incredible precision. “Receiving the image in real time makes it possible to determine if the individual in the house is the teenage son who has returned because he had forgotten something, or he is a thief. And the same in a business. Even if there is no light, our experts can differentiate by sound alone if a criminal is trying to break into the slot machine,” he points out.
The company, part of the Verisure group, leader in Europe and second worldwide, is proud of the technological effort behind its services, backed by dizzying figures: an investment of 300 million euros in recent years and 600 engineers in their I D Hub in Spain. “We have 2 million clients, which is equivalent to 6 million protected people. At Securitas Direct we have contributed to creating and democratizing the category of connected alarms and strengthening the protection of people, homes and small businesses, always in collaboration with the State Security Corps and Forces. Thanks to this, Spain is one of the safest countries in Europe,” explains Laura Gonzalvo, Director of Communication and ESG.
The secret of this success hinges on highly qualified personnel to address any security problem in record time and the most disruptive technology on the market. In the recently inaugurated Security Experience Center they exhibit some of their latest innovations: the SOS button for the home (a button with geolocation that can be placed on the bedside table or in another point of the house to notify in case of not feeling well or have an emergency), the Senior Protection watch (geolocates and detects if an elderly person has fallen and notifies the emergency services if necessary), or the new PreSense technology, which detects the thief before entering the house or the business. “It includes perimeter detectors, security cameras and Shocksensor vibration detectors,” adds Elena Elías, director of Head of Brand.
The latter are small devices, about the size of a clothespin, that are placed on the windows and warn of any unexpected vibration of the frame. “That is, it warns us that someone is trying to open the window or break the glass, before they even enter. With this technology we go beyond preventing theft, we prevent a stranger from entering our home, our privacy.” These small devices are already on the market and add up to a whopping 20 million connected devices.
If strangers' friends set foot on protected property, they may encounter an unpleasant welcome surprise: the ZeroVision system. Launched in 2017, it remains one of the jewels in Securitas Direct's technological crown. With a size no larger than a can of tomato, it is capable of filling a space of 100 m2 with dense smoke with the smell of botafumeiro. All in less of one minute. The Security Experience Center has a small room where they 'lock up' some journalists (among them, this one from La Vanguardia) to experience first-hand what the criminals feel.
As we browse the room, something similar to the uncorking of a bottle of cava sounds. It's the ZeroVision hanging next to the ceiling that has opened, letting out white smoke resembling incense. In just a few seconds the air becomes completely opaque. We don't see anything, our eyes sting and we lose our sense of direction, despite being in a room of just a few square meters. At that moment the criminal would have been left completely vulnerable in a strange space where he cannot move comfortably. “He is not the first who, in a panic, calls the police to take him out of the property where he wanted to rob,” adds Elías. The smoke is not toxic, the air is still breathable, but the sensation is agony. Your brain is in shock and thinks you are going to suffocate, although you are still breathing normally.
It only takes a few moments until a member of the communications team opens the door for us to return to the common areas, but it seems like an eternity. “To avoid false alarms, we activate it manually from the Central once we verify the intrusion. When the police arrive, the house is ventilated and within two hours there is no trace left. It does not stain or deteriorate the property inside the house,” he points out.
The Alarm Receiving Center (ARC) in Spain is the largest and most modern in Europe, in terms of volume of connections and number of professionals. It has two offices, one in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid) and a second in Cornellá de Llobregat (Barcelona). It has been operating since 1993 - this year it celebrates its 30th anniversary in our country - and from here more than 2,000 experts ensure the safety of its clients. “These extraordinary dimensions guarantee us to provide a service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without collapsing. We deal with an average of 44,000 incidents a day. Our professionals receive specific training to analyze possible risk situations and act in cases of real emergencies,” explains Montse Díaz, director of the CRA and Customer Relations. All actions - he emphasizes - comply with very strict protocols. Nothing is improvised.
When an agent is faced with an emergency, their job is not only to notify the police or emergency services, in the case of a person who has become disoriented or suffered a fall on the mountain. “They stay on the phone with that person providing reassuring accompaniment. At that moment, which can be minutes until help arrives, his voice is vital for that person,” adds Díaz. Every day they face very different contingencies. “On one occasion, a woman who was a victim of sexist violence pressed the emergency button. Her husband had confiscated her cell phone, he couldn't call for help, and he was attacking her. Thanks to that, the police arrived before he killed her,” he points out. The average response time is 20 seconds, although with this type of device the response can be reduced to just over 14 seconds.
Our visit ends in the Data Processing Center, a huge room with servers and generator sets capable of providing continuity of service even in cases of blackout. They even have an emergency plan to transfer an essential remainder of their human teams to another headquarters, about 80 kilometers from the capital, in the event of a fatal catastrophe at their headquarters. “We are people who protect
people and we cannot fail them,” they conclude. Reality has taught us that villains never rest. Nor, unexpected mishaps, as reported by some of the protagonists of the docuseries Protectores. But here they know that security does not sleep either so that their clients – they do – can sleep peacefully.
