What Does Security Mean to You?

The term “security” can mean many different things to many people, and there are many companies claiming that they are selling security, but what is it they are selling?

Security can mean many different things to individuals, organisations, and states.

For instance:

• Emotional security
• Financial security
• Economic security
• Personal security
• Health security
• Household security
• Resource security
• National security
• Environmental security
• Cyber security

In my experience, the term is normally used to indicate physical guarding, cybersecurity, or technical systems such as video surveillance and intruder alarms.

This type of security interpretation rarely appears to address other areas indicated in the list above, yet security crosses all aspects of our personal and business lives and, if applied correctly, could address many of people’s concerns.

The Sage Dictionary of Criminology defines security as “the state of being secure, specifically freedom of fear, danger, risk, care, poverty, anxiety.”

Therefore the opposite of security must be insecurity. It is within this insecurity that the security market seeks to sell services, and individuals or companies purchasing security share the assumption that insecurity has been reduced.

So the transaction appears to satisfy the emotional and economic security requirements, although by the very action of securing one group or entity another group will be excluded and may feel insecure.

An example of this is the spread of CCTV within urban environments aligned to the policies and procedures that actively seek to identify young persons in groups greater than three and then direct security personnel to disperse them or move them out of the area.

This example shows that there is a fine line between providing security for one group and marginalising others.

Defining insecurity

As a practitioner of security, my role is to understand where my client’s needs for security lie; help them define their insecurity; and then determine what security means to them at personal and organisational levels — all the while developing ways in which security mitigations can be measured.

There is a famous saying: “If you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage it.”

The purpose of measurement is to show that the client’s insecurity can and has been reduced, therefore attributing some meaning to it, whilst indicating what residual security-related issues are still evident or may emerge, such as disaffected young people.

It needs to be remembered that the client’s interpretation of security will be influenced by personal and professional viewpoints, which have been constructed by organisational and social structures. Local, national, and international governments influence these structures through the implementation of policies.

So in order to prove the value and meaning of security, we need to be clear on the risks being addressed. The mitigations should be developed along lines that can attribute a value and ideally show a reduction of the risk.

Clients and security providers should also ensure they understand and record where they see future insecurity developing due to the proposed or implemented security mitigation measures. This should allow for future planning, and it may well be another area in which the business of security could expand.

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