“Grey space” is the term used to label the undefended areas between security protected zones. In a grey space, a criminal or terrorist can prepare for their attack feeling unobserved, and with a low risk of identification. Recent attacks that have been initiated in grey spaces include the 2017 ones in Manchester, and Westminster Bridge and Borough Market in London.
Rick Mounfield, Chief Executive, the Security Institute, says: “If urban communities of security professionals and estate owners can collaborate to extend their defensible spaces, they will limit the grey spaces that allow for low risk preparation; increasing the attacker’s paranoia and hopefully deterring an attack.”
How can security design, security personnel and technology help to turn grey spaces into defensible spaces, to create a perception of risk for the perpetrator planning an attack? That’s the question and the topic for a panel of speakers on day one of IFSEC 2018 at Excel in London Docklands.
Speaking to Professional Security, Rick Mounfield said that it’s been put together under the umbrella of the Security Commonwealth, the body representing some 43 security industry bodies, including the Security Institute, and the Association of Security Consultants (ASC), whose chairman and current chair of the Commonwealth, Joe Connell, will chair the IFSEC panel. Speakers are designing out crime consultant Chris Aldous, of Design Security, who’s also a ASIS International UK Chapter 208 board director; the consultant Simon Whitehouse of SGW, a director of the Security Institute; and Met Police Supt Nick Aldworth, featured in the May 2018 print issue of Professional Security, at the launch of London-wide Project Servator counter-terror police patrolling.
A question and answer time will follow. That session begins at 1pm on Tuesday, June 19, in the keynote arena. Entry to IFSEC is free but you have to register beforehand; visit https://www.ifsec.events/international/.
Picture by Mark Rowe; security officer on door at Excel during IFSEC 2016.
