The International Security Expo provides a unique platform for the entire security industry to come together to source products and share experience. Philip Ingram looks at the current threat landscape and why the International Security Expo is the perfect place to find the solutions and skills to combat them
As a car tore into barriers outside the Palace of Westminster having knocked over several cyclists beforehand, the country held its breath. Was this that start of another terror campaign like the one that tore across Europe and the UK in 2016–2017? Many cities across the globe were left reeling from a wave of extremism targeting people going about their normal lives and enjoying themselves and the often crudeness of the weaponry used belied the sophistication of many of the attacks.
How do we keep our iconic buildings accessible and safe? A question to ask the Deputy Head of Security Operations in the Parliamentary Security Department at the Houses of Parliament, Fay Tennet, who is speaking at this year’s Olympia based International Security Expo held on 28-29 November.
2018 has been successful for the security services with a number of attacks being stopped, but the UK Counter Terror Police continue to remind everyone that they have approximately 600 active investigations going on with over 3,000 people of immediate concern and another 20,000 on their radar. Many, if not most, of these investigations will be occurring in our cities and many of the subjects of those investigations are likely to be targeting our cities.
However, 2018 will already be remembered for a new type of attack, with the first use of a deadly, military grade nerve agent on the streets of the small sleepy English city, Salisbury. The nerve agent Novichok was used in an assassination attempt on a Russian former intelligence officer, Sergi Skripal and his daughter Yulia, in March.
This incident, that could be from the pages of a John Le Carrie novel but is now a vehicle for greater public-private security cooperation with many of the 1,200 police officers drafted in to secure contaminated sites, being replaced by security guards. The impact it has had on Salisbury is great but the impact such an incident would have on the streets of London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow or Belfast is unthinkable. Safer Cities is a leading conference as part of this year’s International Security Expo.
We have also seen an explosive drone attack on the Venezuelan President and recently the EU Counterterrorism co-ordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, told a conference at the Royal United Services Institute that terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS would soon turn to constructing biological weapons and possibly use drones to spread such infections. This year we have seen arrests in Germany linked to a plot to use the biotoxin Ricin in a terror attack. Its purity and quantity shocked the German security agencies.
At the same time, ISIS and Al Qaeda terror videos and propaganda are advocating the use of drones against crowded places. During the FIFA World Cup in Russia an ISIS propaganda video was released in which the terrorist group said that they would attack with drone bombs - thank goodness they didn’t. The recipe and design for chemical weapons and chemical dispersion devices is freely available in the extremist circles according to Aimen Dean, a former MI6 spy inside Al Qaeda in his book ‘Nine Lives.’ Drones will be a central theme to this year’s International Security Expo.
Aviation Security is examined closely and central to this conference will be Tom Willis, the head of Security from Heathrow Airport.
The Irish question
Andrew Parker the Director General of MI5 said in May this year that: “Europe faces an intense, unrelenting and multidimensional international terrorist threat. Daesh continues to pose the most acute threat, but Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups haven’ gone away.”
He barely mentioned Irish Republican terrorism. On 12 April a picture of a group of five men wearing combat jackets and carrying two automatic rifles, three pistols and a pipe bomb was passed to the Irish News from an organisation calling itself the Irish Republican Movement (IRM). The IRM are a new republican terror group based in Belfast and West Tyrone and have stated they will ‘actively target Crown Forces’ involved in policing operations against republican commemorative events.
It is believed that they are made up from disgruntled members of another republican terror group called Óglaigh na hÉireann which had earlier announced a cessation of its armed struggle. How big a threat is this new group and how much terrorism is there still in Northern Ireland? I think given the lack of press coverage you are about to be shocked…
In the last two years there have been eight security related deaths, 111 shooting incidents, 53 bombing incidents, 88 firearms recovered, 75.6kg of explosives recovered, 6,357 rounds of ammunition recovered, and 313 people arrested under section 41 of the terrorism act, of which 34 were charged. That is almost one arrest every other day and one bombing or shooting incident every four days and it has been like this since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
If this was happening on the UK mainland then it is highly likely that the Prime Minister would be chairing COBR meetings on a daily basis and the Metropolitan Police Commander Cressida Dick would be permanently on our television news screens.
Instead the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) quietly get on with dealing with the incidents and the national press quietly get on with ignoring them. However, for the wider security community there is a very real opportunity to look at the security situation in Northern Ireland and to take as many lessons from it to apply on mainland UK. Picking the lessons from many years dealing with the terror threat in Northern Ireland and reflecting on how to counter the ‘momentum’ threat at the International Security Expo is Ken Pennington, just retired from PSNI.
The chance of safety
Keeping abreast of the threats, the countermeasures, the developing technologies, having a platform to discuss and share best practice is always a challenge for the security community. This is where Peter Jones, the CEO of the Nineteen Group comes in. He recently said in a blog: “All I want to do, with my team, is something to help make it a little less chaotic and bring the chance of a little more safety and security. If I can do that, then it is all worth it and will leave the world a little better for my loved ones!” This is his mantra behind his event.
What many don’t realise is a big part of his team consists of 40 Advisory Council members who come from all aspects of the security community, including government, industry and academia, all at senior levels and they assist in the development of International Security Expo and help shape the content to attract the highest calibre visitors. The Expo is all about expert content and debate, and to enable the sharing of best practice and a greater understanding of how technology can help.
That content is delivered in 12 free to attend conferences held over the two days and these conferences include: Retail, Hotel, Education, Maritime and Transport, CNI, Crisis Response and Business Continuity, Protecting Crowded Places, Night-time economy, Designing Out Terrorism, Cyber, Data and Information Security, Aviation and Border security and finally Facilities Management security. Some of the speakers come from the Advisory Council but many are industry leaders in these spheres and are not generally on many conference circuits.
One such speaker looks at people. Security isn’t a technology issue or a policy issue it is a people issue. In fact, that statement can be easily expanded to include all business and the reality of life. Now that I have answered Douglas Adams quandary, (what is the question about Life the Universe and Everything that has the answer 42, as described in the bestseller The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy), I should stop now. But this isn’t the people solution, Darren Stanton, ex police officer and prison psychologist, now the ‘Human Lie Detector’, will shed some light on the mysterious world of reading people.
Innovative products
The International Security Expo provides a unique platform for the entire security industry to come together to source products, share experience and gain the knowledge needed to address current and emerging security challenges. It and all of the conferences are free-to-attend and unite the entire security community allowing shared learning and collaboration from government, CNI, law enforcement, military, major events, transport and borders, cyber security, facilities and public and private sectors.
A key theme running through the two days of the expo is that of innovation and many new technologies will be on display, ranging from a cost effective British built drone with thermal and optical zoom cameras that has a flight time of an hour by the Guildford based company Evolve Dynamics, to the Protecting Urban Spaces feature. This new immersive demonstration area will showcase physical products, technologies and have live scenarios to illustrate how urban spaces can be protected from mass casualty terrorist attacks.
Given its ambition, the UK government has come on board in strength and forms the core of the Government Agency and Department zone. The USA, Canada, China and the EU all have their own zones, but it is expected that representatives from over 50 countries across the globe will attend the event. In fact, over 12,500 are confidently expected to attend over the two days, and collocated is the new International Disaster Response Expo, the networking alone will be amazing.
With the rapidly changing threat landscape the one place to come for two days to be brought up to speed with everything that is needed, is the International Security Expo. This is one not to miss. Visit the Expo website for further details and register to attend the free conference series.