SI Editor's View: Is it fair to scare?

29 Apr 09

OK we’re in a recession, but if burglars are planning a 50 per cent increase in productivity it can’t be all bad.

What other industry has this kind of sunny business prospect in these dark trading days?

According to the UK’s biggest insurer we could see a 50 per cent increase in household burglary.

That’s an increase of more than 140,000 on the Home Office figure of 280,000 burglaries nationally last year.

No joke if you’re a victim – and the security industry has, traditionally, not played on the public’s fear of crime.

In the past, installation companies that have done this have been roundly criticised.

But burglaries have risen four per cent in the second successive quarter in comparison to last year.

So in these tough times I don’t see why the public awareness of becoming a potential victim can’t be connected with the kind of security services your company can provide.

With installation companies facing the same difficult trading conditions as everyone else, and with the very real prospect of going under, should we as an industry continue to take the moral high ground on this?

What other industry would knowingly not mention its biggest selling point to its potential customers?

It’s not as if the government doesn’t do that very thing all the time. Every new restriction on our freedom is justified by blatantly playing on our fears about “national security”.

What’s wrong with installation companies highlighting local crime waves, and targeting areas that are suffering from increased burglary, in their marketing? I see nothing wrong with using these kinds of figures to stimulate trade.

If the figures are true the public should know about the potential dangers anyway.

In one sense I suppose you could say this is playing on their fear – but isn’t the whole insurance industry based on that very thing?

Doesn’t the car industry do it by making you feel safer in your 4x4?

Doesn’t the food industry make you feel safer by selling you low fat this and that?

In the same way, installers are simply providing a service that could save a lot of heartbreak if people are willing to pay for it.

Unlawful proposal

It sounds like the trailer for that cheesiest of early nineties films, “Indecent Proposal” – would you sleep with someone for £1m dollars?

A new version put to London commuters asked the question “Would you sell your company’s secrets to a stranger for a million pounds?”

Unlike the film question, where nothing was illegal – and, no doubt, many women would have slept with Robert Redford for nothing – the results of the new survey showed that a full third of those questioned would commit this crime.

Of the dishonest people, five per cent would sell secrets to get a new job and one worker said they’d do it just for a free meal.

Of course there’s a big difference in answering such questions from someone who stops you at a railway station and doing it in real life.

I, for one, always give false answers to these things just for fun and to throw them off the scent.

But, undoubtedly, there are a good number of people who would sell secrets, so if you’re the custodian of sensitive information or databases – especially of a security nature – it’s worth taking in the advice from the survey organisers.

And according to this, SMEs are just as vulnerable to such fraud and cyber-crime.

Give this a push

This whole business about kick-starting the economy by getting people to buy things they don’t need – the preferred solution of both the UK and US governments – does seem a bit like a recurring bad dream.

Why should we do the same thing to get us out of the mess that we did to get us into it?

The scrappage scheme to kick-start the car industry seems to be hugely illogical.

For instance, if you drive an old banger, why do you drive an old banger?

Is it perhaps because you like the many rattling sounds? The unpredictable nature of the winter morning starts? The water supply from the sunroof? The aroma of dead cats coming from the boot well?

More likely, it’s the only thing you can afford to drive – and as long as it’s got an MOT what’s wrong with that?

There we are, in one breath talking about saving the planet, and in the next scrapping a perfectly usable one-and-a-half tons of metal and using up valuable resources to replace it without any good reason other than the fact that it is “old”.

Worse still, for a £2000 bribe, we’re encouraged to obtain credit and get into more debt, the source of the crisis in the first place.

According to some this has effectively stalled car sales in the UK – so a well thought through policy as usual.

If you’re an installer thinking of taking advantage of the offer – as it does apply to fleet vans – you might well disagree.

What’s the gimmick today?

How many more gimmicks do we have to suffer at the hands of the Home Office/Justice Department?

The latest proposal from the Justice Department is that the public are given the chance to vote on how they want offenders to carry out community service.

You know, cleaning graffiti off walls or mowing a grass verge.

This so-called public involvement merely sounds like another predictable excuse to cloud the issue over the government’s long neglect of the criminal justice system.

Many people feel that community sentences, often derided by the offenders themselves, are not a fitting punishment for all manner of nasty crimes.

Consultation? It’s like asking us what we think offenders should have for their Saturday night takeaway – Indian or Chinese?

Err, what about nothing?

These regular gimmicky initiatives are signs of desperation. If the Home Office/Justice Department had done the job of building more prisons a long time ago they wouldn’t have had to resort to such gimmickry now.

Along similar lines, I hear on the news today that the naming and shaming of criminals on leaflets distributed to local homes is not now likely to go ahead.

Wouldn’t it be best if they stopped all this headline grabbing that ends up nowhere?

Data de-based

Jacqui Smith’s announcement on Monday to scrap the controversial central data base scheme was a welcome step but, in the face of such heavy criticism, what alternative did she have?

In any case, the “Big Brother” plan to track everyone’s phone calls, text messages and internet visits has not really been scrapped, just watered down.

The records will still be kept, but by the service provider. Not much difference really, as the authorities will still have access to all that information whenever they want it.

It will include who you are contacting, when and where and which websites you visit, such as Facebook or Twitter, but not the content of the conversations.

When all these database plans were drawn up, no doubt it was thought the public would meekly accept them.

Unlike most sane people, these crazy power freaks can’t have anticipated the strength of public opinion that has surfaced,

It has resulted in the ripping apart of Jack Straws data sharing plans and the Home Secretary’s own humiliating climb down on Monday.

Still, this is a step in the right direction. The security industry itself is damaged by association with the whole “surveillance society” issue which is greatly fuelled by these unpopular database ideas.

Daft Vaders

What’s wrong with police in Strathclyde listing their religion as Jedi in a diversity form?

Although they’re not using “The Force” against evil Darth Vader they’re still battling the Dark Side on the streets of Glasgow.

Sounds like a pretty appropriate religion for the police, and a lot more fun than most – light sabre training, wearing futuristic outfits, talking in strange politically correct vagaries that other people don’t really understand.

You have done well, my young apprentices. May the police force be with you.

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