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s the UK terror threat level remains at Severe, the owners and managers


of large retail destinations must face up to the prospect that an attack could happen at any moment. If the retail sector is to be adequately prepared, collaboration and communication are crucial.


The retail sector cannot bury its head in the sand regarding terrorism. A major terror incident is likely to occur in the UK in the very near future and, alongside transport hubs, event venues and public spaces, large retail destinations are considered to be top of the list of potential targets.


The UK’s police and counter-terrorism forces are doing everything possible to prevent this from happening. The various initiatives led by the police and the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) are staggering in their scale and complexity, and are doing a sterling job of keeping our nation’s people and places safe. However, as some of the more recent lone-actor attacks in the US and Europe have shown, there are some attacks that prior intelligence simply cannot predict.


We also cannot expect the police to put resources on the ground at every potential target purely as a precaution. There are thousands of locations across the UK that can be classified as high risk. With police resources already stretched, it simply isn’t possible to deploy additional forces without specific intelligence suggesting an imminent attack.


It is therefore beholden on everyone to do what they can to support police and security forces to help mitigate this threat. In high-risk environments such as retail centres, businesses and individuals need to be the eyes and ears of the security forces on the ground. This means acknowledging the threat we all face, understanding their own responsibilities and, most importantly, being willing and able to tackle this challenge with the appropriate preparation, planning and training.


Understanding the challenge


The main security threat in the retail industry is to larger shopping centres and mixed-use destinations. The police are particularly concerned about the prospect of a military- style attack of the kind seen in Nairobi in 2013, when a number of al-Shabab terrorists opened fire on shoppers at the Westgate Shopping Centre, killing 67. The Paris attacks in November 2015 followed a similar modus operandi, with 130 people killed in a series of assaults on retail and leisure venues across the French capital, and served to underline the risk we face in popular public places.


From a security perceptive, the physical nature of the modern retail environment compounds the risks we face from this type


2 © CI TY S ECURI TY MAGAZ INE – AUTUMN 2016


of incident. Few modern shopping centres are built to the old, enclosed ‘arcade’ model, which had only a small number of entrances and exits and could be policed relatively easily. Most are now open-air and expansive, with numerous entrances and exits and a mix of indoor and outdoor environments. This diverse space is extremely hard to monitor without significant resource expenditure.


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every entrance of a large, sprawling shopping centre.


In most terror attacks like that carried out in Nairobi, the perpetrators have undergone an extensive period of intelligence gathering prior to carrying out the attack. Often this will take the form of a physical trip to the target in question, where key entrances and exit routes are marked and CCTV cameras and other security measures are identified. These ‘hostile reconnaissance’ missions offer a crucial opportunity to stop potential terror attacks. On a number of occasions our security teams have noticed people acting suspiciously – for example, taking photographs of security features within a shopping centre – and passed on the information to the police, resulting in an arrest.


The changing way in which customers use and experience retail destinations is making this process more challenging. The proliferation of non-shopping facilities and amenities, from gyms and cinemas to restaurants and nightclubs, has seen shopping centres evolving from ‘a place to buy things’ to leisure destinations in their own right. The sight of someone hanging around a shopping centre doing nothing is now commonplace – making it far harder to identify anyone whose intentions may not be innocent.


No silver bullet


Some believe that advanced monitoring technology is the answer when it comes to tackling the terror threat, but in identifying perpetrators carrying out hostile reconnaissance its effectiveness is limited.


While there are now hundreds of CCTV cameras in place across large shopping centres and within individual stores, their primary use is to counter petty crime and ensure visitor safety, rather than to identify suspicious individuals. To keep track of a 1,000,000 sq ft shopping centre in real-time would require a huge team of security professionals dedicated solely to video monitoring, which is simply not possible.


Facial recognition technology has been touted as a potential solution. Indeed, if linked with counter-terrorism databases, a facial recognition system could identify anyone with connections to terror groups as soon as they enter a site and automatically alert the police and security forces. Such systems, however, are still in their relative infancy and remain prohibitively expensive – especially if used at


www. c i t y s e cu r i t yma g a z i ne . com


The other – and perhaps even more problematic – issue is the negative impact this technology would have on the customer experience. Facial recognition systems need to be approximately at eye level to work effectively, making the cameras extremely obvious to visitors. While people have acclimatised to the prevalent use of CCTV in public areas, being faced with an imposing camera system upon entering a shopping centre is considerably more intrusive and may impair visitors’ first impressions.


The silent army


So if technology can’t provide the silver bullet solution and security forces do not have the resources to monitor every high-risk location, what can retail businesses do to tackle the threat of terrorism at their own sites?


First and foremost, they need to understand that in their workforce they have a huge pool of untapped resources which, in most cases, are not being utilised. From cleaners to maintenance operatives, shop managers to helpdesk assistants, every single person working in a retail environment can – with the right information, guidance and training – be a valuable weapon in the fight against terrorism.


In April 2004 the City of London Police and Metropolitan Police launched a counter- terrorism scheme called Project Griffin. Originally focusing on London’s financial sector, Project Griffin was about empowering the wider City of London community to help protect their buildings, business areas and neighbourhoods against the threat of terrorism – acting as an additional set of ‘eyes and ears’ for the police, while also being prepared to react in the case of an attack.


In the years since, Project Griffin has grown far beyond the City of London, extending to other police forces across the UK and to other countries around the world, including Australia, Singapore, South Africa and the United States. Now it is being taken one step further, in the form of a new Griffin-based ‘Industry Self Delivery’ initiative that aims to provide one million people working in crowded places, such as entertainment venues, retail centres and transport hubs, with dedicated training to spot potential terror threats.


At Interserve, we have been strong advocates of the Project Griffin programme for some


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