Mass Notification in Emergencies: Barriers to Forging a Common EU Standard  

Martin Harvey, vice chairman of the Services Section at Euralarm and Head of Regulatory Affairs EMEA, Tyco /ADT ponders the difficulties in establishing a transnational system for notifying the public of terror threats or imminent/unfolding natural disasters.

He also discusses the internet of things, the progress of which hinges on the same factors as those crucial to the implementation of a EU-wide approach on mass notification.

IFSEC Global: Martin, what’s the situation on creating mass notification systems for emergency situations like terror attacks or natural disasters?

Martin Harvey: A considerable amount of money was invested in a demonstration to demonstrate what could be done to improve notification across European borders. It doesn’t seem to have gone any further than the demonstration though.

Japan has a pretty good warning system, America has a good warning system. Various European countries have different degrees of warning systems. Until a few years ago in the UK we still had the old air raid warning system from World War Two!

So if you do have incidents, say a gas cloud or a flood, which direction are the governments going. And does it we need a demonstration that is joined up and across boundaries.

So the really big question is how you actually move this on, if you fund a demonstration project to become a reality. Because it affects lots of different industries like telecoms, fire and security, mobile networks…

They really need to start putting some standards in place so that at least everyone is working towards the same rules and standards. Because otherwise the fear is that you get 27 member states all reinventing the wheel until there are 27 different versions.

They obviously recognised that it is an issue with the terrorist threat. If you’re going to save people’s lives you need to tell them what’s going on and you need an efficient system for doing that.

But how do you roll that out across Europe?

IG: So when was this demonstration?

MH: September 2014.

IG: And what are the barriers to progress on this issue?

MH: There are two big barriers. One is getting everyone to agree that this is a way forward. And then because it’s not a one off widget, because it affects a lot of different people, we’d probably need a series of standards for product manufacturers and software developers to work to.

I had a meeting in Germany when a nearby gas plant released this poisonous gas. They were going around, telling everyone to shut the windows.

With a proper mass notification system you could just notify everybody. With a TV or radio broadcast someone might pick it up, but you need to reach everyone in the down-wind area.

IG: What’s your view on the internet of things and the possibilities it creates?

MH: For governments that ae short of money it offers a chance to improve the efficiency of things. So how can you use your CCTV to do more than just law enforcement?

If there’s a fire then the London Fire Brigade knows that not only is there are fire at 42 Blackfriars Road but it’s on the 17^th floor, on the south side, its 250 degrees celsius and you need 10 fire engines.

IG: Presumably the main barrier to harnessing smart technologies is the same as the one impeding mass notification – common standards…

MH: Yes. Common standards but costs too. A will to do things.

I guess fire and security systems are both insurance-prone. No one wants to buy them until something goes wrong. It’s a grudge purchase.

IG: Would you like to tell us about the webinar that’s happening soon, hosted on IFSEC Global by Euralarm and Siemen?

MH: Cities across the world are becoming more competitive and spending a lot of time on their utility and transport infrastructure, but not necessarily paying enough attention to how they could use a lot of the safety and security equipment that’s already fitted in buildings, but in a smart way.

So it’s not starting from scratch. A building’s existing PA system could be used in a sensible way; it’s just about finding an interface to it.

There’s a lot of stuff out there that is already internet-enabled, it’s just how we use it for more than the purpose it was set up for. We’re starting to see snippets of it, like movement detectors switching lights on and off.

Heat sensors used for fire detection as well as for environment control. It’s just expanding all of those things and linking them together.

So the webinar is about how the cities see this challenge, who is the responsible person within the city. “These are problems I have – how can industry help solve them?”

With security you can almost divided it between general security, the higher security and then the intelligent, cyber-led side of things.

IG: So it sounds like the webinar would appeal to a wide range of people…

MH: I think it’s pretty widespread. I think that’s probably one of the beauties of it: we don’t quite know the direction that we are going.

I think that’s what the webinar’s there for: to really get people talking. How can we use the internet to make cities safer and more secure?

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