Retailers Against Crime Ireland is to adopt DISC as the software behind its data sharing anti-theft project.
Donie O’Callaghan of Dublin-based RACI made the announcement at the National Retail Crime Conference in Dublin’s Citywest Conference Centre on October 16.
Much like retail partnerships in the UK, Retailers Against Crime Ireland is working to enable information-sharing to reduce and prevent retail theft in Ireland. ARCI says that it selected DISC after reviewing other options. According to O’Callaghan, DISC (Database and Intranet for Safer Communities) was the only solution that delivered the functionality needed, as well as compliance with the Republic of Ireland’s tight data protection obligations.
He believes that the biggest challenge for the development of information sharing between businesses and the Gardai (Irish police) is to win the approval of the country’s Data Protection Commissioner.
He says: “We have a very strict Data Protection regime in Ireland, so we know we need something which will stand up to the closest scrutiny. ISC is the only serious offering. My goal for RACI is that it is seen as the single organisation that retailers need to sign up to in Ireland in order to share information with the Gardai. We aim to be the single point of contact between retailers and An Garda Síochána that delivers the highest possible levels of compliance with the Data Protection Act. And I believe that is what An Garda Síochána also require. RACI and DISC are in a position to deliver a top-class secure and compliant solution, because DISC has been designed from the beginning to do just that.”
Also speaking at the event was Charlie Newman, director of Littoralis – the company that has developed DISC, and installed it in around 100 locations around the UK.
Newman said: “DISC is flexible enough to give users precisely what they need at the local level; yet it is totally rigid in terms of obliging users to comply with the strictest data protection environment. That’s why in the UK DISC is supporting a wide range of users, from small, voluntary retail crime reduction partnerships to very large ones, from shopping centres – including the very largest – to numerous constabularies.
“It delivers different benefits for different types of users – but always and everywhere in strictest compliance with the law.”
Newman shares O’Callaghans’ view that Ireland faces great possibilities: “Ireland, with its national police structure, has an opportunity to implement a really 21st-century national online retail crime reduction system. That system, based on partnership with retailers, can deliver benefits to all participants: but the benefits to the wider community as a whole are obvious too, not only in low costs and high levels of effectiveness, but also in reducing low-level as well as organised crime.”
For more on Retailers Against Crime Ireland visit www.retailersagainstcrime.ie
For more about DISC visit the Littoralis website at www.littoralis.com
