Security Lessons from the UK

Europeans, and Brits specifically, handle security differently than do the Yanks. Understanding why and how can help give both sides new ideas.

Boston-headquartered records storage company Iron Mountain, which counts 80 percent of Britain's largest companies as customers, as well as a number of British government departments, also sees security-related differences between Britain and the United States, says its European Construction Director Stephen Newell. Iron Mountain's facilities in the United States, he notes, are generally located in sparsely populated areas. In Britainand especially in its cramped and congested southeast region, around Londonthat's not an option. Consequently, at the document storage sites that Newell constructs and equips, "There's a much greater emphasis on perimeter security than in the U.S.," he explains. His American counterparts, it seems, place their emphasis on securing the building. In contrast, Newell sees a secure building as a second line of defense, not a primary one. One particular Iron Mountain site in southeast Londonwhich, he says, at 240,000 square feet comprises Europe's largest purpose-built records management office"would probably be subject to fly-tipping [illicit garbage dumping]" or invasion by squatters if the company didn't secure the perimeter. So it is secured indeed, with proximity-triggered 2.4-meter palisade gates, a full-color digital CCTV system and beam detectors that immediately direct the CCTV cameras toward any point where the system is triggeredall conforming to BS EN 50133-1, the British standard for access control systems used in security applications.

But Britain's population density isn't always a drawback. Ask Bruce Larson, security director at Voorhees, N.J.-based American Water, the United States's largest investor-owned water resource. American Water, it turns out, is managed by Britain's RWE Thames, a utility company with global ambitions, and Larsonwhose purview includes both physical and information securityhas spent the past three years coordinating RWE Thames's global security programs, as well as managing U.S. security for American Water. British security executives, notes Larson, have one luxury not always afforded their American counterparts: If they work for a geographically compact organization, they have the ability to stay much more closely in touch with their grassroots-level staff, and the facilities that they secure, than their counterparts in the United States.

"In the U.K., you can easily drive around every facility, if you want. You can call everyone together and brief them. Or carry out an audit. Support is not only much easier in a compact geography, but also you need proportionately fewer staff than you do in large geographies," Larson says.Ireland's LegacyBut the biggest eye-opener in Larson's three-year stint has been his recognition of the United Kingdom's far greater exposure to terrorism, thanks to the Irish separatist movement. Until a recent cease-fire, mainland Britain regularly experienced terrorist atrocities, usually at the hands of the Irish Republican Army or its splinter groups. "The U.K. has had 20 years of dealing with terrorism within its borders and so has had a long time to consider what constitutes critical infrastructure and how it might be protected," says Larson.