Lines in the Security Sand

ASIS entered the standards development world after its members around the globe—risk management, security, preparedness, and continuity practitioners alike—identified a growing need for compatible standards to enhance the protection of people and assets, promote consistency, and reduce trade barriers.

 

The ASIS Web site, www.asisonline.org, is the best resource for an up-to-date list of published standards and guidelines as well as those in development. The following is a sample of what has been published recently and is under development.

 

American National Standard: Organizational Resilience: Security, Preparedness, and Continuity Management Systems—Requirements with Guidance for Use. This published American national standard is intended to help companies prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions by emphasizing the synergies between the functions of risk, security, preparedness, continuity, and emergency management. Addressing the specifics of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) voluntary private security preparedness Title IX initiative, the ASIS organizational resilience standard is intended to meet the goal of ensuring nationwide resilience to all types of hazards. Widely recognized as an important and cost effective tool for organizations to improve their resilience performance, this standard is being used as a basis for similar international and national standards in countries around the world.

 

Facilities Physical Security Measures Guideline. This published guideline assists in the identification of physical measures that can safeguard an organization’s assets—people, property, and information. It outlines eight categories of physical security measures: physical barriers, physical entry and access control, security lighting, intrusion detection systems, video surveillance, security personnel, security policies and procedures, and crime prevention through environmental design. Security convergence is also addressed. More than three years in the making, according to F. Mark Geraci, CPP, chair of the ASIS Commission on Standards and Guidelines, this guideline will “have the greatest impact on, and be most useful to, the vast majority of security professionals,” he said. A standard based on the guideline is under development.

 

American National Standard for Workplace Violence Prevention and Intervention. Developed jointly with the Society for Human Resource Management, this draft standard will provide an over­view of general security policies, processes, and protocols that organizations can adopt to help prevent threatening behavior and violence affecting the workplace. It will help organizations better respond to and resolve security incidents involving both threats and actual violence. It outlines security prevention and intervention strategies and defines the procedures for detecting, investigating, managing, and addressing threatening behavior or violent episodes that occur in a workplace or with company employees. Various working groups are being formed to initiate the development of the standard.

 

Additionally, two new joint standards initiatives are being developed with the Canadian Standards Association regarding risk management and risk assessment. ASIS is also working jointly with the British Standards Institute to develop an American National Standard on Business Continuity Management.

 

ASIS has amassed the credentials to be recognized as an authoritative voice in the standards-setting community at international, national, and regional levels. For example, ASIS actively participates in critical international standards activities in both the International Organization for Standardization and the European Committee for Standardization. ASIS is also an American National Standards Institute accredited standards development organization. Further, ASIS guidelines have been recognized under the Support Antiterrorism by Fostering Effective Technology Act of 2002 (the SAFETY Act) by DHS.