Standardisation in public space protection

Standardisation is at the core of European competiveness as a global economic power. Common standards contribute to the safety, quality, environmental sustainability, interoperability, compatibility of products and processes and security. Importantly for the field of protection of public spaces, standards can enable companies to comply with relevant laws and regulations[1]. For the protection of public spaces, there is an array of active and passive, digital and physical protective measures. Standards which specifically address certain types of protective measures are often missing, which leads to the lack of minimal requirements for testing, installation and/or product safety.

This article aims to open up the debate on the needs, ways and required steps of creating norms for protective measures. CEN and ISO security standards are created by bringing together different parties including manufacturers, security operators, security coordinators, police forces, and research institutions. The European Commission, in line with its European Agenda on Security, aims to foster the process of standardization and will be working with stakeholders in order to define relevant needs and draw up a plan for standardization activities in the field of protection of public spaces.

The making of standards

There are four broad categories of standards[2], whereas a standard may belong to more than one category:

• measure / metric standards - all comparable quantities are measured against the standard (for example the kilogram for weight)
• process oriented / prescriptive standards - methodology to perform tests and perform processes in a consistent and repeatable way
• performance standards – it is not the process but the performance of the product which is specified (for example building norms which specify what rain or snow load a building in a given area should withstand)
• interoperability among systems – specification of a fixed format (for example, chargers for mobile phones in the EU)

Standards can come about as a result of a widespread consensus without the formal approval of a standardization body (so called de facto standards, for example the QWERTY keyboard). De facto standards can get a de jure status as it often happens with new technologies which establish themselves as a most successful model – e.g. the HTML or MP3 formats. De jure or regulatory standards are created by formal standards organizations in order to ensure minimal requirements in a number of sectors, such as quality, safety, security, repeatability, performance etc. Voluntary standards can also be created through consensus among market operators and/or professional associations (for example the format of credit cards).

There has been a move towards a more proactive attitude by the European Commission towards standards and now they are viewed as a provision of EU law[3]. Indeed, in the field of protection of public spaces, the question of enforcement is fundamental for the efficiency of standards. Still, in order to allow for innovation, flexibility, reduced administrative burden and for the involvement of less powerful stakeholders, it is important to keep up with the model of the so called (now not so new) "New Approach", where a product must conform only to the essential requirements spelled out in a EU Directive and not to the entire harmonized standard, which remains voluntary.       

European Standardisation in the Field of Protection of Public Spaces

As security is becoming an increasingly prioritised EU policy area, the European Commission has identified standardisation needs in the fields of crisis management and in the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence[4]. In 2011 the European Commission issued a programming mandate[5] to CEN/CENELEC/ETSI to establish a roadmap for the development of security standards for civil application focusing mainly on interoperability and performance standards in the fields of security of the citizens (organized crime, counter terrorism, explosives, CBRN, fire hazard), security of infrastructures and utilities (building design, energy/transport/communication grids, surveillance, supply chains), border security, and restoring security and safety in case of crisis.

CEN/TC 391 "Societal and Citizen Security' provided an overview of existing national security standards[6], concluding that standards across Europe are very fragmented and security standardisation at European level needs to be approached in a more structured way. The stakeholder analysis performed by CEN/TC 391 indicated a broad range of interested parties. The priority recommendations set by the report concern border and aviation security, CBRNE, crisis management and civil protection (mainly in restoring security and safety in case of crisis), personal data protection, and the general coordination of European security standardization. The second report by CEN/TC 391[7] proposes a standardization road map which focuses mainly on information sharing, interoperability and external borders[8].

The Way Forward

A targeted and coherent approach to standardisation for protective solutions (physical or technological) in the field of protection of public spaces is still lacking. Here, we offer a brief overview of existing or ongoing standardisation more directly related to the protection of public spaces and propose ideas for further action. These are to be seen only as starting points for opening up the debate on standardisation needs for the protection of public spaces and not as an official roadmap.   

• Vehicle Security Barriers

There is an ongoing consultation to make the ISO International Workshop Agreement on vehicle security barriers (ISO IWA 14-1 and ISO IWA 14-2) into a full ISO standard. However, in the EU vehicle barriers are presently being tested and certified under different testing standards (IWA 14-1, PAS 68, CWA 16221, ASTM F2656) leaving a broad margin for the minimal performance requirements of products available on the EU market[9].

The available standards focus mainly on the testing of non-surface placed barriers (meaning barriers that have a foundation, are rebated or are pinned/anchored/bolted to the ground). The objective of British PAS 68 and ISO IWA 14-1 is mainly to provide a test method for rating the performance of barriers subjected to a single impact from a threat vehicle[10], but they do not introduce additional specifications for the testing of mobile barriers like for instance the friction coefficient between the barrier and the surface on which it is placed. Since movable temporary barriers are widely used in urban areas, there is a growing need to develop standards that are able to effectively evaluate their performance.

A major drawback of the crash testing of vehicle security barriers is the high cost of the impact tests. The conventional approach is to run a vehicle against the tested barrier, specifying its mass, speed and impact angle – repeating the test with another vehicle under the same conditions in order to verify the results is costly and therefore rarely done. Computational methods to simulate barrier crash testing may provide a cheap, effective and reliable alternative. For such an approach, finite element models of vehicles need to be developed and agreed upon to allow for the drafting of a barrier design process with the assistance of finite element algorithms.

• Structural design under external blast external loads

Eurocode EN 1991-1-7 makes reference to the assessment of accidental loads due to impacts and internal explosions, touching on vehicle collisions and gas explosions; it also recommends certain design strategies to ensure increased robustness for enduring localized failure and avoiding disproportionate collapse.  However, a standard for the calculation of blast induced loads from external explosions (for example explosives)[11] is still missing.

There is an ongoing debate on whether the Eurocodes (the European standards for the design of buildings and infrastructures) should provide minimum design requirements for robustness, since this would significantly increase construction costs. It seems that an effective approach would be to establish prescriptive rules and leave an opening for quantitative and risk-based methods and let them become common practice (a de facto, but not de jure standard).

·Testing of structural elements against explosion-induced loads

Even if standards for the testing of building elements against explosive effects exist they need to be reviewed to encompass the variation in the existing threats. In addition, there exists no standard for establishing a risk assessment procedure concerning blast loaded structures. 

The European Commission reference network for Critical Infrastructure protection (ERNCIP) is actively involved in the pre-standardisation of test procedures and risk assessment. The ERNCIP thematic group “Resistance of Structures to Explosion Effects” has reviewed the existing standards[12] concerning blast resistant windows and doors for CEN/TC 33/WG 1 and they will be now modified in order to better address current security needs.

·Interoperability of data collection, data analysis and intelligence systems

The adoption of technology in the urban environment for monitoring, surveillance and identification of threats (e.g. CCTV, sensors) is gaining more and more ground in cities, following cost reduction, increased quality and reliability of technology, and easier installation procedures. However, in the CEN/TC 391 on Societal and Citizen Security the area of video surveillance was not considered thus leaving standardisation in this sector fragmented and weakly addressed[13].

Moreover, the advent of SMART Cities adds additional layers of complexity to the challenges of systems integration, with new technologies like the Internet of Things devices and different standards on its own. As an example, the FIWARE open source cloud platform, which is the result of a public-private partnership supported by the Commission, is an effort towards the development of open standards for European - but not only - cities. However, seamless integration of security and smart city systems remains a challenge and such systems are often segregated. There is a pressing need to create standards for the interoperability of data collection, data analysis and intelligence IT systems used in the protection of public spaces. For example, standards and protocols allowing for the integration of SMART City platforms and CCTV surveillance systems can not only increase the efficiency of such technology but also to allow for cooperation among urban regional and national authorities.

• Testing and benchmarking of surveillance and AI-based systems

   

The testing and benchmarking of surveillance and AI-based systems for cities is a pressing need. One of the problems for Public Administrations willing to implement a city surveillance system is how to choose from those available on the market and evaluate the compatibility with legacy systems. This is particularly difficult for AI-based systems: facial recognition is already used but how can the performance of available systems be assessed and measured? Moreover, there is ongoing debate on the bias of face recognition. The uncertainties and possible wrong use of such complex tools calls for the definition of procedures and standards and, possibly, ad-hoc legislation to ensure a correct use, also in compliance to the European privacy legislation.

The mandate M487 to establish security standards considers privacy issues stemming from such technologies and the reports of CEN/TC 391 reports stress on the importance of having personal fundamental rights at the core of any standardization process. As a next step, standardization should also ensure the interoperability of data collected by such systems as well as the possibility of sharing data among different administrations.

This general discussion on the needs of standardisation in the field of protection of public spaces is to serve as an opening to a more detailed and concrete debate. The European Commission is organizing meetings with stakeholders in the coming months with the ambition to set up a roadmap for standardisation in the field.

For comments or questions, please contact JRC-PUBLIC-SPACES@ec.europa.eu or HOME-D2-TERRORISM@ec.europa.eu