Joint Security Industry Council

SECURITY - CURRENT INITIATIVES AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

As the current Chairman of the Joint Security Industry Council in the UK (JSIC), I welcomed the opportunity to provide an article for the Security section of the Parliamentary Yearbook.

JSIC provides considerable feedback for draft legislation and as an organisation with close links to the Home Office we were pleased to provide significant input, organised by Mike Welpley, the Chief Executive, to the House of Commons Defence Committee Report last year.

When reviewing current initiatives and future developments it is important to realise that on 11 September 2001 the world changed for many industries, including aviation, but particularly for the security industry. Also, the impact and the details of terrorism were brought home dramatically to the man in the street as no other incident prior to the World Trade Centre attack had done. Terrorism was no longer something that was somebody else's problem or happened to other people. It could affect anyone, anywhere, in any part of the world - even when on holiday in an eastern paradise such as Bali.

For government and security, 11 September has had another disturbing dimension: they have had to come to terms with the fact that the terrorists achieved maximum results with low-tech planning and training and nothing more than knives. Most of the technological surveillance and terrorist-prevention techniques seem to have failed.

This has brought about a fundamental review of terrorist-prevention techniques and the need for vigilance in every town, street and public place. Much has been achieved since 11 September; many improvements have been made in the identification of terrorist activity at the early planning stages in order to prevent events before they occur. That this strategy is working is evident from the considerable number of arrests based on intelligence information at the planning stage.

The private security industry is well positioned to provide assistance here, because of the large number of control rooms, CCTV operators and cameras covering major corporate facilities, public areas, places of entertainment and national sites and monuments. There is also a need to provide a more readily available and extensive response service when incidents do occur, and significant progress has been made in this area too. The general public is also much more aware of what might constitute suspicious activity, and many concerned citizens have used the 999 system to provide timely information to the police when they have observed suspicious or very unusual activity.

In the field of aviation, extensive programmes are under way to install hold baggage and cabin baggage x-ray systems within all US airports. In the UK, such measures have been in place for the last 25 years to counter the threat of Irish terrorism. However, since 11 September the methods and procedures used for checking hand baggage have been significantly improved and upgraded, and major trials on the use of facial recognition have been launched at a number of airports.

In the corporate security arena, however, there is still much to be done. In London, most companies have an access control system for their employees and it is common practice for visitors to be checked, signed in and badged before they enter the company's space. Organisations have also fitted extra CCTV, and control-room staff have been instructed to be more vigilant for suspicious activity around the perimeters of their buildings. But the story outside the capital is somewhat different, with basic measures to control access to corporate working space often not fully implemented. While the threat in these areas may be lower than in London, it is unwise to avoid the basic levels of protection. The anthrax attacks in the US have shown the potential vulnerability of corporate and national mail systems and the need for vigilance when processing mail and packages entering a working location.

What does all this mean for the corporate security sector?
The most important first step, and the one where mistakes are most often made, is to accurately assess the threat to each type of business, facility and location. Airports and major government buildings and facilities are obviously targets for terrorism, because they strike at a nation. The majority of other commercial businesses, unless they have a very high international profile, are less likely to be a direct target of terrorism but are very likely to be involved in an attack directed at a much more foreseeable terrorist target near to their own business location. In these cases it is important to match the threat with the level of countermeasures designed to contain the threat, and to ensure that all basic security measures relating to equipment, training and procedures are in place and working effectively. Balancing the threat against the appropriate level of countermeasures is vital. Overreaction to the threat leads to very costly solutions that are unlikely to be supported in the long term. The use of inadequate countermeasures will lead to a significant increase in the likelihood of attack, because the unprotected location appears to be a soft target. Places of entertainment are particularly vulnerable to this problem.

In summary, the best development for the future is to accurately assess the threat to each location and plan cost-effective countermeasures that are sustainable in the long term and to provide effective levels of security.

Supplied by courtesy of Chris Gordon-Wilson, Chairman, Joint Security Industry Council (JSIC), Chairman of the Association of Security Consultants and Managing Director, Security Consortium International