Providing greater security in postal traffic

Münster University heads German-French research project / Experts in logistics and law join forces

Münster (upm), Fr, 03 Aug 2012

Prof. Dr. Bernd Hellingrath, spokesman for the German-French project

photo: WWU

Germany and France have started a research project with the aim of providing greater protection for international letter and parcel traffic. Logistics and legal experts from Münster University (WWU) were entrusted with heading the project entitled InPoSec (Integrated Postal Security). Among them are Prof. Bernd Hellingrath, an expert on business information systems and logistics – and spokesman for the German-French project – and Prof. Hans-Michael Wolffgang, a lawyer. The aim is for the project to be developed right from the start in compliance with legal requirements such as those for data protection.

InPoSec is being funded for a period of three years by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche and the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Funding of around 2.1 million euros is being provided for the German side – as part of the German government's "Research for Civil Security" programme – and 1.8 million euros are going to the French consortium made up of universities and companies. The aim of this academic project is to come up with solutions to provide better protection for citizens against threats posed by any abuse of international postal services, as well as to increase security in the face of terrorism and organized crime.

Post offices provide an inexpensive, countrywide transport service and, as such, play a key role both in communication between people and in trade. It does, however, have a high degree of complexity. In cross-border postal traffic in particular there are a large number of organizations which work together. For these global transport routes the aim is to improve cooperation and thus provide better protection against explosives and hazardous materials sent by post. "As a result of extensive collaboration with the French consortium we are able to make a detailed analysis of potential points of attack along the postal supply chain and then develop joint solutions to increase safety," says Bernd Hellingrath, who holds the Chair for Information Systems and Supply Chain Management at Münster University.

To this end, technical and organizational solutions are to be drawn up within the existing legal framework. These solutions will be based on coordinated collaboration to reach agreements and on intelligent risk assessment to identify suspicious letters or parcels. One central element in the project is the social perspective, in other words meeting security requirements while keeping data gathering as low possible and ensuring data protection in this case. For this reason, all the solutions developed as part of the InPoSec project will be drawn up, right from the start, so as to be in accordance with the legal requirements of the basic right to protection afforded by data protection legislation, postal secrecy and customs legislation. "We will be involved in the entire process to develop technical solutions and we will ensure that they conform to the law," is how Hans-Michael Wolffgang describes the legal experts' role in the project.

The job of the Chair of Business Information Systems and Logistics at Münster University is to study the flows of material and information and to draw up proposals to redesign these flows with a view to increasing security. This will be done in close consultation with professors from the Law Faculty, who will examine the project to ensure that it is compatible with current German, French and European law. Also involved on the German side are the Deutsche Post and the company MIC Logistik GmbH.

Research project InPoSec Prof. Bernd Hellingrath, spokesman for the German-French project

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