On second thoughts, a trawl through this long security year might take the edge off that mulled wine glow.
Airport attacks and draconian counter measures, revolving door Home Secretaries, Euro alarm standards, database blunders, licensing blunders, installers losing work to the IT boys … oh so depressing at this joyous time.
So what are the significant changes since last Christmas?
CCTV on the defensive
I see two important changes which threaten to reverberate against the industry unless it works hard to rectify them.
The first is the notable difference in the perception of CCTV now as compared to a year ago. I don’t want to exacerbate this, but it’s impossible to avoid in any summing up of the year.
There’s a distinct feeling that CCTV is now having to justify itself to the nation which has, largely, welcomed it with open arms.
Not so long ago the UK industry was trumpeting with pride that it was setting an example to the rest of the world. Now, following the never ending database blunders and justifiable public concern about how much information is being squirreled away and used carelessly, we have CCTV’s name being dragged into the mire.
Let’s not even go into the ‘evidential image quality’ debate that’s also bubbling away.
While it’s good to see the BSIA take the lead on this, I feel everything should be done to distance CCTV from this insidious data collecting obsession by a government patently unable to control this tragi-comedy of disasters.
CCTV is an entirely different concept, with the sole aim of protecting people and property and making society safer for all of us.
I detect a thinly-disguised political agenda to blur the boundaries of these two concepts. Even the House of Lords falls into the trap of this false pairing, calling it ‘surveillance and data collection‘.
Dragged into headlines
The second big change I notice is the public perception of the Security Industry Authority. You might think What perception? This time last year most of the general public would not have heard of the SIA.
Installers, who have not been subject to its regulation, may have thought themselves lucky they were not involved in licensing.
Now, with the SIA’s name being dragged regularly into the headlines over the illegal workers licensing fiasco, they are no doubt happy to be at a safe distance. Despite the opinions of some observers that the SIA has played by the book and is exonerated from all responsibility for this Home Office blunder, mud has stuck, justly or unjustly.
A yardstick can be taken from the comments on our own website where the opinions of your average security operative – as opposed to the regular talking heads (such as myself) – can be aired in a paragraph or ten. Here, the SIA do not come out smelling of roses.
This may be unfair criticism from our web correspondents who may have had pent up antagonism against the SIA for any number of reasons. Judge it for yourself.
Have your say
On that subject, may I add, modestly, that our own website www.info4security.com has contributed to a crucial change in the industry this year.
Here – and not before time – is a way for ordinary people in the industry to contribute to a debate when the urge takes them.
Make no mistake, although it seems our current government operates independently of the electorate, its spin doctors take the nation’s temperature via the many Have Your Say-type forums out there.
In the same way, your views can influence the security industry’s movers and the wider sphere, so make sure you regularly visit and have your say.
All we survey
What must our European friends be thinking about all this UK security drama? What trends are helping to focus the minds of our EU partners? One must be the riveting results of a survey I was sent from a group called ESPON – the European Spatial Planning Observation Network. I will be adding this ‘mapping exercise’ to my list of apparently useless surveys of 2007, if the press release is anything to go by.
This document tells us that in Europe “the majority of countries have high levels of human development”, but development is “by no means uniform across the European continent”. Well, who would have thought it?
It also reaches the ‘conclusion’ that “Overall it is clear that European countries rank very highly in terms of human development and are well positioned to improve their standing in the near future”.
That’s all right then.
While pondering who exactly pays for this type of thing, I was struck by the irony that top of the survey list of high achieving countries is Norway – which is not a member state of the EU!
Happy Christmas and see you next year
Alan Hyder
Editor, Security Installer