Whatever the politics of the negative publicity surrounding foreign ownership of US ports, the issue did raise an important point. According to Paul Singer, vice president business development of maritime security service provider Securewest International: “It did serve to highlight some holes that exist in maritime security in general, not just where containers are concerned. The International Ship and Port Facility Security Code has been a definite step in the right direction but it is all about compliance, and the implications of costs (in time and money) for those working in the maritime industry.”<\/p>\n
Initiatives such as the United States’ Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, launched after 9\/11, have shown there to be action on securing the supply chain from factory to warehouse, says Mr Singer. “This is to be applauded, but once again we find a situation where the details of just how this is to be achieved seem somehow to be lacking. Only recently serious flaws were once again uncovered in US ports where a journalist posing as a hitchhiker gained access repeatedly to supposedly ‘secure’ ports and terminals without even having to hide in the container or back of the truck cab.”<\/p>\n
The Independent Standards Organisation is said to be close to defining international standards for intelligent container seals and a number of commercial companies are currently trialling their own products.<\/p>\n
But containers seals are “all well and good” if there are the eyes available to check them for tampering at every point along the supply chain, says Securewest. “The issue of container seals is raised at every meeting we have with container shipping companies, ” says Mr Singer. “Cases of seals being legitimately broken to make random checks on containers along the supply chain but proper notice of the new seal not being passed on along the forward chain are frequent.<\/p>\n
“Equally, the recent discovery of ISO seals having been stolen by criminal gangs illustrates that, if successful, such containers would have been able to sail through the whole shipping process unchecked.”<\/p>\n
Without any agreed standard, everyone claims that their “smart” seal meets approval and the sooner a standard is agreed, the better, says Mr Singer.<\/p>\n
“There are some excellent solutions on the market and not all of them from the huge multinationals, ” he says. He splits them into two camps: passive seals (typically RFIDs, radio frequency identification), which are cheap and effective but only check for status at fixed points along the supply chain, and active seals (typically GPS-based), which allow the container to be tracked and verified for status literally from factory to the door of the warehouse. Some even allow the remote monitoring of temperature on reefers.<\/p>\n
But he emphasises: “Container sealing is obviously just part of the security process, especially when you consider that we are not just talking about terrorists here. Stowaways are a constant drain on resources. When we carry out security assessments for clients it is often the case that the fundamentals of security are not in place to begin with, and it is these simple actions that should form the bedrock of any port or ship security plan. History dictates that the terrorist (or any intruder) will use the path of least resistance.”<\/p>\n
That means creating more barriers, he says – simple preventive measures to restrict access to areas or vessels, and proper and thorough access control at all times.<\/p>\n
When controlling stevedores, a rigid system should be in place to create effective security. Methods of identification with numbered tabards or vests issued every shift, returned post-shift and thoroughly checked back in should be considered.<\/p>\n
Control and patrol of mooring lines is another key factor – the use of highly visible guards is most effective, as are other measures such as grease on mooring lines, cables and hose pipes. Patrols should be made 24 hours a day, and night vision equipment is recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Industry experts say the focus on container security has sharpened following the furore surrounding the DP World port ownership in the US. Felicity Landon reports on the latest developments in container seals and the challenges of box security on the quayside<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-6719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-terminal-operations"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6721,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6719\/revisions\/6721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6719"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=6719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}