Maximum security, minimum disruption

SIR – IT’S ALWAYS REASSURING WHEN someone confirms they have absorbed the information given to them. Don Grimes demonstrates this very ably in his article on Mail Room security (‘Affecting deliveries’, SMT, December 2004, pp23-24), which was based on his attendance at the ‘Safe or Suspect?’ seminar hosted by Todd Research last September.

I give these lectures on a regular basis, and they’ve been running for well over a decade now. It’s very useful to have some feedback. The points Don makes are all very relevant, although many practitioners will not be able to achieve some of them in the real world.

In addition, there’s one very important factor with which I wish to take issue. Namely evacuation.

The aim of any Mail Room security policy must be to execute whatever tasks are needed with the minimum disruption to the host organisation. Although safety is the main priority, business continuity is extremely important for most organisations. Overreaction to an event is almost as bad as under-reaction, particularly in subsequent incidents when some individuals may not take the situation seriously enough – the classic ‘cry wolf’ scenario.

It’s rarely necessary to evacuate the whole building for a suspect package, whatever its type or location. This emphasises Don’s point about having formally trained incident or security co-ordinators on site as it’s they who’ll be making the initial decisions.