In order to understand how best to set up and maintain this public-private cooperation, and ensure that it is successful in a Security Continuum, CoESS has collected examples throughout Europe, has analysed them and extracted best practice and guidelines. These take stock of the history of the industry and the change that our society and industry are witnessing, as well as the actions needed to manage that change.

Especially in the light of security challenges to the protection of public spaces and Critical Infrastructure due to terrorism and technological developments, it is important that both private security and police do not stand in artificial competition with each other and, instead, exchange information as partners in a set legal framework, which respects and protects data privacy and confidentiality. Private security guards perform a valuable range of preventive missions and represent an untapped potential that could be better used by police forces. Likewise, they need to be aware of risk and threat developments to effectively carry out protective missions. For an optimised level of prevention and response, it would be necessary to establish a form of cooperation frameworks and urgent communication from law enforcement to private security companies and vice versa. For the security of special events, such as international government meetings, football matches, and concerts, effective public-private partnerships already exist in certain countries.

These and more findings and recommendations of the White Paper were presented at CoESS’ 6^th European Security Summit in Rome, the European Week of Security in Nice and the High-level EU Counter-UAS conference in Brussels.

The White Paper can be downloaded here.