Security Working Group

Over 512 million European citizens and over 27 million European businesses rely on safe, secure and efficient infrastructures for international e-commerce and post. At the same time, citizens and businesses trust their governments to be effective in preserving their privacy. A large fraction of the post and e-commerce crosses an EU border, on arrival or on its way to economic partners worldwide.

Within all layers of society and therefore within infrastructures of international e-commerce and post, crime is posing a threat. To mitigate this threat we require a joint effect-oriented strategy with all relevant public and private stakeholders.

The aim of the Security Working Group (WG) is to further raise the current level of postal security to deter the occurrence of criminal activities, to prevent the abuse of the sector for criminal purposes; to disrupt criminal activities, and to support the detection and appropriate action against those who commit crime against the postal sector. In order to effectively deploy or apply pragmatic intervention against existing and future abuse, insight into threats, criminal activities, and methods & structures is required. This in-depth insight must then lead to the efficient use of people and resources for more effective action perspectives and corrective & preventative activities 

This requires:

1. A harmonized and prioritized understanding of threats
2. A harmonized, quantified and prioritized understanding of the desirable efficiency and effectiveness on how to define:
   Threats
   Vulnerability
   Risks
   Barriers
3. A clear understanding, derived from evaluations within the public and private cooperation, on what kind of information can be shared, what is necessary to share and under which circumstances.

The Security WG will make a significant contribution in the following areas:

• Improving the EU’s awareness and coordination of activities within and between EU Member States in the field of Postal Security and developments in Supply Chain Security
• Playing a key role in EU Postal security projects and national efforts, to identify synergies and create a coordinated approach to security throughout the entire supply chain
• Encouraging all European post offices and related authorities to assume responsibility in securing their own processes within a European wide cooperative distributed model
• Creating transparency on the way postal security measures are enforced, and providing benchmarks
• Establishing a Europe wide forum to discuss and agree on a Postal Security which will provide the basis for standardization
• Share best practice, knowledge and insight through international forums to establish an effective, efficient security network within the global Postal community

Updated 11 April 2019