Liberty versus safety: a design review

It is our contention that when designing against terrorism, it is important to fully understand both
terrorist perpetrator techniques and terrorism prevention principles and to establish the myths and
realities about ‘fear of terrorism’, before catalyzing new design innovations. This paper assesses the
requirement for designers to mediate issues of user liberty versus security. We assess the troublesome
design tradeoffs between accommodation of users and exclusion of terrorist misuse and abuse linked to
bicycle parking, using the Conjunction of Terrorism Opportunity framework. We include the case
study of the Biceberg automated bike parking system in relation to the fitness for purpose versus
resistance to terrorism debate.

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