LAFAMILIALic. Silvina GrossR E I S E | P A G E 4
SERGOBIERNOLic. Ana ValoyAccording to Wikipedia, there are twoslightly different meanings of safety. Forexample, home safety may indicate abuilding's ability to protect againstexternal harm events (such as weather,home invasion, etc.), or may indicate thatits internal installations (such asappliances, stairs, etc.) are safe (notdangerous or harmful) for its inhabitants.Discussions of safety often includemention of related terms. Security is sucha term. With time the definitions betweenthese two have often becomeinterchanged, equated, and frequentlyappear juxtaposed in the same sentence.Readers unfortunately are left to concludewhether they comprise a redundancy. Thisconfuses the uniqueness that should bereserved for each by itself. When seen asunique, as we intend here, each term willassume its rightful place in influencing andbeing influenced by the other.Safety is the condition of a “steady state”of an organisation or place doing what it issupposed to do. “What it is supposed todo” is defined in terms of public codes andstandards, associated architectural andengineering designs, corporate vision andmission statements, and operational plansand personnel policies. For anyorganisation, place, or function, large orsmall, safety is a normative concept. Itcomplies with situation-specificdefinitions of what is expected andacceptable.Using this definition, protection from ahome’s external threats and protectionfrom its internal structural and equipmentfailures (see Meanings, above) are not twotypes of safety but rather two aspects of ahome’s steady state. Security is theprocess or means, physical or human, ofdelaying, preventing, and otherwiseprotecting against external or internal,defects, dangers, loss, criminals, and otherindividuals or actions that threaten, hinderor destroy an organisations “steady state,”and deprive it of its intended purpose forbeing. Using this generic definition ofsafety it is possible to specify the elementsof a security program.R E I S E | P A G E 3