As incidents involving drones have become more frequent inside and outside the EU, it is necessary to address the potential threat posed by their use for illegal, irregular or even malicious purposes. Two new JRC handbooks list thought-through approaches for countering such threats.
On the 13th of December the European Commission is proposing new rules to strengthen the use of Advance Passenger Information (API) data. This proposal is one of the key actions identified in the EU Security Union Strategy. The EU continues its progress in strengthening its overall security architecture, which aims to enhance EU citizens' protection, as shown also in the Fifth Security Union Progress Report. The report highlights three years of solid progress in implementing the Security Union Strategy. It shows that significant steps have been made in strengthening the protection of critical infrastructures from physical, cyber and hybrid attacks, in fighting terrorism and radicalisation, as well as in the fight against organised crime.
A new dedicated website on the JRC Tools and Data to Counter Terrorism has just been released. Visit the site to learn more about blast and vehicle ramming tools and Europlexus (the simulation software dedicated to the analysis of fast transient phenomena). This site is managed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
The Security by Design book is published! The handbook introduces the innovative concept of security by design by promoting together with the protection aspect also a practical implementation in the design and redesign of public spaces. It was drafted by a broad range of experts in the security field coming from the European Commission and the academia. This book aims at addressing the practical concerns of integrating security measures for project teams, security operators, urban planners and anyone involved in public space projects.
The Joint Research Centre is opening the ELSA HopLab facility to academia and research organisations, industry and SMEs.
On the 6th of September 2022, The United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) hosted a high-level virtual event to launch five new specialized guides (modules) dedicated to the protection of particularly vulnerable targets against terrorist attacks. The event brought together decision-makers, practitioners and experts on vulnerable targets protection from Member states, international and regional organizations, the private sector, civil society and academia. The 5 modules are presented by the United Nations Global Programme on Countering Terrorist Threats Against Vulnerable Targets, which is led by UNOCT and jointly implemented with CTED, UNICRI and UNAOC: Module 1: Protecting vulnerable targets from terrorist attacks Module 2: Protecting urban centres from terrorism attacks Module 3: Protecting tourist sites from terrorism attacks Module 4: Protecting religious sites from terrorism attacks Module 5: Protecting vulnerable targets from terrorist attacks involving unmanned aircraft systems
Latest edition of Challenging Glass international conference was held 23 and 24 June 2022 at Ghent University. In this framework, a paper titled “Numerical Analysis of TGU Windows Under Blast – GLASS-SHARD Outlook” was presented, released by JRC and the University of Trieste. The paper presents some of major outcomes of Finite Element (FE) numerical methods and simulations that have been explored in the framework of the GLASS-SHARD research project for glass windows and facades under explosion or soft-body impact, with a focus on the analysis of a Triple Glass Unit (TGU).
To feel secure or to be secure, that is the question the new volume “Security by design” is posing to readers. It could be interpreted both as a statement hiding an expression of confidence that it is indeed possible to be secure by design, or as a question, revealing an admission of uncertainty.
These are the guidelines issued by Nordic Safe Cities. The publication is a collection of the learnings from the taskforce. It presents five ‘Safe Urban Spaces Principles’ along with concrete tools that can support practitioners in the process to create safer urban spaces. The final chapter presents these principles in action, with three Nordic cases exemplifying how these principles and tools are currently being used in practice
Detecting threats to public spaces typically requires a multi-layered approach, where different technologies with complementary strengths and weaknesses are combined to create a single screening process. With well-known concepts like “swiss-cheese model” and “defence in depth”, it might seem a no-brainer that more layers of security equals better security. However, a paper recently published by JRC advocates for a more nuanced approach. More layers of detection can potentially result in better security – but it all depends on the layers’ comparative strengths and weakness, and how the results from different layers are combined. The paper concludes that designers of security checkpoints must adopt systems-based thinking, as equipment-based thinking alone is insufficient to properly understanding of the overall performance of a multi-layered screening process.
The Commission has been supporting Member states in addressing the threats from non-cooperative drones since 2016 and many more relevant initiatives have been developed in different European institutions, agencies, Member states, international organizations and partner third countries since then. The next meeting for Member states and partners is scheduled to take place in Brussels on 28 November 2022, in hybrid format.
The 28th of June 2022, the European Commission reach a political agreement between the European Parliament and the Council on the Directive on the resilience of critical entities (CER Directive), proposed by the Commission in December 2020.
In mid-November the Commission will perform a Protective Security Advisors (PSA) mission to Sweden, deploying a PSA team to support SE in performing a risk assessment of a religious site, i.e the “Bajit” Jewish Community center in Stockholm. As you know the PSA missions are meant to support Member states in carrying out risk assessments, building on the experience of a pool of Security Advisors who have been attending ad hoc courses here in DG HOME, as part of the EU efforts aimed towards enhancing the protection of public spaces, including places of worship.
The recent history of terrorist attacks has repeatedly targeted public spaces as a highly remunerative modus operandi of terrorism and violent extremism in order to jeopardize our European way of life. The EU has taken different initiatives in order to support Member states efforts in stepping up the protection of our citizens, also supporting the operational cooperation on the ground among law enforcement networks.
X-ray scanners are used to protect many kinds of public spaces, such as train stations, government buildings, and large entertainment events. Until now, however, there were no harmonised European performance requirements for detection equipment outside aviation security.
The European Forum for Urban Security (Efus) organised the “Inclusive and Safer Public Spaces” conference that took place on the 23 and 24 of November 2022 at the Square Brussels Convention Centre. The conference, organised by two European projects PACTESUR and Secu4All in partnership with Safe.brussels, tried to answer to the question “How can cities protect their urban public spaces in the face of evolving threats, while ensuring they remain open and accessible to all?”.
News from the recently created working group, which is striving to establish a methodology to be used for the performance assessment of vehicle security barriers through numerical simulations.
Dear Readers, We are happy to present you the next issue of our newsletter after a longer time. Yes, we have challenging times in terms of security! After surviving Covid times, we have to realize that there is a war in Europe and that is challenging our attention on new security threats.
The Commission has published a new call for proposals for € 14.5 million under the Internal Security Fund-Police to fund projects improving the protection of public spaces in line with the EU Action Plan to support the protection of public spaces.
This report contains recommendations for prevention of crime and dangerous polarisation processes at the local level. Both phenomena threaten social cohesion and, conversely, can be alleviated by strengthening it.
