Sadly it seems the radio communications of a dying police officer (whilst on duty) were streamed by the media and as a result were broadcast to the public before his next of kin were even contacted. With current technology available for groups to easily intercept radio conversations it is becoming more and more important to create a secure way of speaking over the systems. More information on this specific report can be found on the Ottawa Citizen newspaper website.
Although these are unique circumstances, the need for secure languages over the radio is one of the most important parts of training for the communications team.
The phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie etc) was really created for clarity as letters can be difficult to hear with background noise and radio interferences, but this language is well known and therefore won't really help to keep a conversation secure.
Team and property based codes for specific circumstances are popular with businesses that utilise radio communications and tannoys, circumstances they are commonly used for include:
- Emergencies and first aid situations
- Cash and key conversations
- Customer information
- Staff location and requests
Even in your local supermarket you hear tannoy users requesting 'code 4' or similar, which I am told sometimes means 'all till trained staff to return to the tills' and obviously works well when they checkout queues are getting long.
