[committee] Fwd: Security review

[Alex Dawson]

Hi Ewan,

You are welcome to send this on to Kristy if you wish. As you may or  
may not know, I have a BSc degree specialising in Security  
Management, and in the past have dealt with IT Security and Risk  
Management for the University.

Speaking as a member and not committee of both UCC and Unisfa, I must  
say that I don't see the point in making the key policy more  
restrictive. As I see it, the problem is not that too many people  
have keys to the building and the club rooms. The problems in the  
past have stemmed from a couple of things - the fire exit bottom door  
being of insufficient quality to withstand entry (though the addition  
of a steel locking plate has helped this), and the "fire exit" being  
open all the time providing a means to get to the corridor club rooms  
without passing by the more often inhabited UCC. Additionally, UCC's  
break ins have almost all been by people climbing down from the non- 
secured top section of Cameron Hall.

Security relies on a couple of core principles - Defence in Depth,  
and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). I'll save  
boring you too much with security theory, but basically defence in  
depth can be summed up as Deter-Detect-Delay-Defend - If you can't do  
one, you do the next, and hope they'll give up and go somewhere else,  
and CPTED is designing environments to be hostile to those who want  
to commit crime - by delineating spaces into public and private,  
providing natural surveillance of protected spaces, and removing  
hiding areas and alternative egresses after the commission of a crime.

Cameron Hall's failings in terms of CPTED are most as I mentioned -  
two entrances, one of which is out of the way, and once inside, many  
of the club rooms can be accessed without the natural surveillance of  
the UCC. Criminals love places with two entrances, and making one  
where there isn't natural surveillance is a gift. The obvious answer  
to these problems is to keep the fire exit closed and off limits. I  
would recommend that the door is signed and alarmed at both top and  
bottom, or at the least an automatic closer is installed at the  
bottom, along with a "door open too long" Alarm, to stop it being  
used as an entrance. Yes, guild catering will have to stop storing  
their stuff in it. I suspect a fire inspector wouldn't be thrilled if  
they saw that anyway. Lighting inside that area should also be fixed.

In terms of "defence in depth", the interior doors with glass panels  
aren't going to provide much security from evil doers once inside the  
building, but I don't think many breakins in the past have been from  
breaking the glass. There are security films available that can  
considerably strengthen the glass, that are about $20/sq metre, last  
I checked.

But the big problem is UCC's area, that can be easily climbed into.  
Building work would be required to address this. Building up to the  
top of the hall would be difficult, but building up to the first set  
of rafters would make it much more difficult and dangerous to get  
into. Some form of sign warning people not to climb over the wall  
would be advisable for liability purposes, or attaching similar metal  
grid between the rafter that would now be the top of the wall, and  
the ceiling (similar to the 4 inch one on the window of the fire exit).

I'd also look at the keying of the building, such that people with  
keys to the lower club rooms can't open the door to the top section.  
It's "easy" to setup a keying system where every key profile can open  
one door (ie, the bottom one), then some can open another door (ie,  
either the upper or lower one), and then only one profile will open  
an individual door (ie, each clubroom door).

Adding lighting can't hurt, I just wouldn't suggest it's going to  
help much. I also don't think restricting keys further would be a  
good idea. UCC tries to stay open most of the weekend, and Unisfa  
also opens some weekends. Reducing the number of keys further would  
just make this more difficult for them - it wouldn't keep the  
building closed longer (which would significantly diminish the  
usefulness of the Cameron Hall facility), and would infact encourage  
people from all clubs to leave the building open when empty.

Kirsty or anyone else from the guild is welcome to contact me via  
email to alex.dawson at uwa.edu.au or phone to 6488 7093.

Regards,
Alex.

On 25/06/2007, at 11:34 PM, Ewan MacLeod wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Kirsty Hendry <socmail07 at gmail.com>
> Date: Jun 25, 2007 1:06 PM
> Subject: Security review
> To: ommittee at ucc.asn.au, drayke at gmail.com,
> universitydramaticsociety at gmail.com, hngd01 at student.uwa.edu.au,
> vaxtat at gmail.com, japssoc at gmail.com, samcraig1 at gmail.com,
> hersh123 at hotmail.com, sdavidson at iinet.net.au, andymahede at hotmail.com,
> tans57 at student.uwa.edu.au, roxana_pope at hotmail.com,
> sheryl.yao at aiesec.net, bennett.jf at gmail.com
>
>
> Hi everyone
>
> I have a few questions to help with the security review of cameron
> hall. Please can you (or someone from your club) fill them out and get
> sent them back to me by tuesday 2nd of july.
>
> Have you had a break-in / muliple break-ins in the last 2 years?
>
> How did they gain access?
>
> Would security lighting improve this situation?
>
> Do you have any other suggestions to improve security of cameron hall?
>
> What is the minimun number of people accessing the key to your
> clubroom that you would be happy with?
>
> What is the ideal amount of people with access to the key?
>
> Do you have any other comments on the key policy?
>
> Do you have any other comments/suggetions on the security and
> administration of Cameron Hall?
>
>
> Thanks very much for taking the time to answer these questions, I hope
> you have a good break.
>
> Kirsty
>
>
>
> --
> Kirsty Hendry
> Societies Council President 2007
> UWA Student Guild
>
> e: soc at guild.uwa.edu.au
> Mob: 0400 747 762
>

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