The tool in which thousands of employers must complete the occupational risk assessment of domestic workers was inaccessible as of Friday.
The Ministry of Labor confirmed that the Prevencion10.es platform, managed by the National Institute for Safety and Health at Work, suffered a computer attack that left the service out of operation in the middle of the start-up of the legal obligation.
Why is the Prevencion10.es website down?
In a statement sent to the media, Yolanda Díaz’s department explained that the web crash was not due to an excess of users, as was first suspected, but to a “malicious attack” that saturated the system.
According to data provided by Labor, in just 24 hours more than 49 million access attempts from more than 16,000 suspicious IP addresses were detected. Some of them generated more than one million requests on their own, an unacceptable volume for a platform designed to serve the 350,000 or so employers of domestic workers registered with Social Security.
The origin of the attack has not yet been specified by the ministry, which has not yet announced whether it will file a complaint. Technicians are working “against the clock” to restore the portal’s operability, while queries are temporarily channeled through the mail prevencion10@insst.mites.gob.es.
An obligation that comes into force in the midst of collapse
The incident comes at a key date, as this Friday marks six months since the launch of Prevencion10.es, after which the risk assessment in employer households becomes mandatory. The system provides users with a report containing the risks detected, the recommended preventive measures and the information to be passed on to workers.
Failure to complete the assessment or to report the measures taken may result in penalties. Although the Inspectorate usually acts flexibly in the first weeks of implementation of a new obligation, the regulations provide for fines ranging from 2,450 euros, if the infringement is considered minor, and up to 49,180 euros in serious cases with aggravating circumstances.
Labor has insisted that the tool does not generate additional costs for employers and that its objective is to transfer to domestic employment the same standards of protection present in other sectors. This highly feminized group, 80% of whom are women over the age of 40 (according to figures provided by the ministry), had been excluded from prevention systems for decades.
The background: delays and unfinished business
The fall of the website comes on top of several commitments that have yet to be fulfilled. As El Independiente recalled in May, the ministry had planned to launch a training platform for domestic workers, a protocol against harassment and a technical guide on occupational hazards.
None of these documents has seen the light of day by the announced deadlines (March and September), adding pressure to a transition that was supposed to strengthen the protection of a historically neglected group.
