Scope and Initial Priorities of ISO/TC 223
The ISO Advisory Group on Security (AGS) in its Final Report (ISO/TMB/AGS N 46) refers to several studies concluding that standards play a critical role in ensuring security and that in key security areas standards are not complete or lacking.
International standardization in the area of societal security, aimed at increasing crisis and continuity management and capabilities through technical, human, organization, operational, and management approaches as well as operational functionality and interoperability, as well as awareness amongst all interested parties and stakeholders.
TC 223 will work towards international standardization that provides protection from and response to risks of unintentionally, intentionally, and naturally caused crises and disasters that disrupt and have consequences on societal functions. The committee will use an all-hazards perspective covering the phases of emergency and crisis management before, during, and after a societal security incident.
ISO/TC 223 will address and supplement issues not currently addressed by other technical committees or international bodies which ISO has formal agreements.
The initial priority of ISO/TC 223 is therefore to identify those standards and other deliverables within the agreed scope of the TC that are deemed necessary to develop by the committee but are still missing and are not being developed by others, as well as to ensure cooperation and liaisons with existing ISO/TC’s and other standards developers in the field.
The standardization activity in ISO/TC 223 will consider all phases of crisis management in natural, accidental or antagonistic events (the all-hazards approach). Aspects of security efforts, including studies, preparations, analysis, systems development, evaluation, prognoses, and after action review will be addressed. Society faces a broad range of societal vulnerabilities and disruptive challenges. Efficient crisis management typically builds upon the functioning of, and standards and methods used in, normal day-to-day activities which are put under severe pressure in an unfolding crisis. In order to build greater overall resilience the ISO/TC 223 standardization work aims at facilitating co-ordinated multi-functional efforts in severe crises that have an impact on security at society level.
To identify key standardization areas a combined top-down bottom-up approach is suggested. AGS recognized in their Final Report that Technical Committees working with standards in this area frequently use a bottom-up approach. Therefore ISO/TC 223 intends to complement this work method with a top-down approach developed on the basis of recognized threats and vulnerabilities as well as business needs. This complementing analysis will bring added values to standards and other deliverables.
In real time events, accidents and crises, time is a critical factor and can not be spent on translations and interpretations of messages. Internationally, a lot of effort is already put into standardizing information flow between organizations working within different functional segments of societal security (“stove-pipes”). Police information exchange with Interpol and EUROPOL are examples of de facto standards on information flow. On the military side treaty organizations have standards for information exchange. ISO/TC223 will therefore, initially prioritize but not limit itself to the development of standards to facilitate multi-functional crisis management and cross-over information exchange, in order to avoid problems with co-operation in a “stove-pipe” approach. Moreover ISO/TC 223 will emphasize harmonization with other standardization initiatives concerning vocabulary, terminology, concepts and basic principles. Ongoing activities within the standardization area (ISO, IEC, IEEE, CEN) and within international and regional organizations, will be considered (see also 4.2). Identification of best practices in procedures and methodologies will be another important element.
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