Year
2005
Abstract
The application of safeguards in sensitive installations is always a balanced task where the safeguards organization must accomplish their safeguards objectives and at the same time to avoid accessing unnecessary information which may be used in proliferation activity. On the other side the installation owner wants to protect what he considers to be sensitive or commercial information. Usually the protective control measures introduced by the plant operators make the safeguards activities more complex and requiring more safeguards effort in order to fulfill the safeguards objectives. The safeguard approach currently applied for commercial centrifuge enrichment facilities are based on the Hexapartite Project which during its development took the information protection in consideration. However in some plants, due to special requirements, the Hexapartite control measures can not fully applied and other specific alternatives control measures shall be implemented. The paper discusses the hole of sensitive information protection based on nonproliferation issues, disclosing of technological and commercial information and also on some state owner political concerns. A concise analysis on information protection taking into account the safeguards approaches and activities, the inspection effort and the plant profile is presented. The paper also suggests points to be considered by agencies and plant owner in order to have an information protection balanced safeguards approach.