Physical security

PHY054

Best practice guidelines for transporting sensitive items

Follow these guidelines to keep sensitive items secure when they’re being transported.

Terms and definitions used in these guidelines

Sensitive item: Any item which, if compromised, would have an adverse impact on the owner; or any individual, organisation, or nation connected to the item.

Owner: The organisation, individual, or author to whom the sensitive item belongs.

Custodian: An organisation or individual that the owner entrusts with sensitive items by the owner to act on behalf of the owner.

Authorised person: A trusted individual granted unaccompanied access to sensitive items by the owner in accordance with the needs of their job.

Transport container: A holding container in which sensitive items are transported between the owner’s site and an external storage or destruction facility.

Choosing the right containers

When you transport sensitive items, they must be in containers that are discreet, opaque, locked, and strong.

Each container must be fitted with a tamper-evident seal and fixed or locked to the vehicle’s chassis before transportation.

If you transport sensitive and non-sensitive items in the same vehicle, they must be in separate containers.

In a closed-bodied or box vehicle, you can use a load compartment that is not accessible from the driver’s cab as a transport container.

You can’t use an open-bodied or curtain-sided vehicle as a transport container, but you can use it to carry containers.

Securing vehicles before and during use

Fit

Before you use a vehicle to transport sensitive items, depending on your assessment of risk, it should be fitted with:

  • an audible anti-theft alarm and immobiliser, which must be armed when the vehicle is unattended
  • a remote tracking device that makes the location of the vehicle available to the owner.

Lock

You must keep the vehicle cab locked, except when allowing the driver or passengers to enter or exit the vehicle.

Attend

While transporting sensitive items, the vehicle must be attended by at least two authorised persons.

Communicate

Your vehicle crew must have a communication device they can use safely and legally while the vehicle is in motion to communicate with the owner, the receiver of the sensitive items (for example, an external destruction facility), and emergency services.

Planning and altering routes

Your custodian must have a documented route plan for the vehicle, including any planned stops and business continuity procedures, which must be agreed in advance with the owner.

Your custodian must record any deviations from the planned route and inform the owner before or on arrival at the destination.

Stopping while transporting sensitive items

A vehicle transporting sensitive items can stop at a location other than the owner’s site or external destruction facility. However, the vehicle must:

·         stop for less than one hour at each location

·         be attended and observed by at least one authorised person while stopped.

Inspect

At the end of each stop, the crew must visually inspect the exterior of the vehicle for signs that someone has accessed or attempted to access the vehicle or transport containers. If signs are detected, the crew must  immediately notify the owner or custodian and seek their guidance on what action to take.

Collecting sensitive items from multiple sites

When sensitive items in multiple sites belong to one owner: In a single journey, you can use a vehicle to collect sensitive items from multiple sites if they belong to one owner. However, you can’t unload anything from the vehicle until it reaches the destruction facility, and you can’t use the vehicle to transport items between the owner’s sites.

When sensitive items in multiple sites belong to different owners: In a single journey, you can’t use a vehicle to transport sensitive items that belong to different owners.

Delivering sensitive items to multiple destruction facilities

In a single journey, you can use a vehicle to deliver sensitive items to multiple destruction facilities. However, you can’t use the vehicle to:

  • collect anything from a destruction facility
  • transport items between destruction facilities.

At each external destruction facility, your inventory of unloaded items must be verified before the vehicle departs.

Loading and unloading sensitive items securely

You must load and unload sensitive items within a secure perimeter when possible. When it’s not possible to establish a secure perimeter, each person who loads or unloads the sensitive items must be escorted by at least one authorised person who is not carrying anything.

During loading and unloading the vehicle you use must also be attended and observed by at least one authorised person.

Following business continuity processes

Keeping driver hours within legal limits

Your custodian must have a documented process for ensuring that drivers don’t go over the legal limit for driving hours. The plan should also aim to minimise unplanned stops due to drivers exceeding the driving hours limit.

If the anticipated driving time to a destination would result in all planned drivers exceeding the legal limit, the vehicle must not depart from the owner’s site carrying sensitive items.

When unforeseen circumstances mean that all planned drivers have reached the legal limit, you must follow your crew replacement process (see below).

Replacing a crew

Your custodian must have a documented process for minimising unplanned stops due to unforeseen circumstances relating to the crew — unforeseen circumstances such as fatigue, illness, injury, or having exceeded the legal limit for driving hours.

When unforeseen circumstances mean the crew can’t continue transporting sensitive items, a replacement crew must be available to complete the journey.

Both crews must follow the requirements in Stopping while transporting sensitive items.

The owner must be notified of the replacement crew and the reason for it as soon as possible.

Replacing a vehicle

Your custodian must have a documented process that minimises unplanned stops due to unanticipated circumstances related to the vehicle — unanticipated circumstances such as mechanical failure or an accident.

When a vehicle is no longer able to deliver sensitive items, a replacement vehicle must be available.

An authorised person must secure the sensitive items as soon as possible.

The sensitive items must be:

  • loaded into the replacement vehicle within a secure perimeter
  • transported to a secure location agreed with the owner where an inventory must occur.

The owner must be notified of the vehicle replacement and the reason as soon as practicable.

Page last modified: 5/08/2019