According to the "KPMG Forensic Fraud Barometer", 77 cases of white-collar crime were recorded in Switzerland in 2014. Compared to the previous year, the number of recorded cases increased by 32.7%. However, the volume of losses decreased by 35.3% and amounted to around 537 million Swiss francs in 2014. The higher volume of losses in 2013 was due to four extraordinary cases with loss volumes of over 125 million Swiss francs each. Compared to 2012, the volume of claims increased by 8% in 2014. As in the previous year, embezzlement was the most frequently recorded offense in 2014, with 20 cases. The criminally obtained assets were often used to finance an expensive lifestyle or addictive behavior, especially drug or gambling addiction.

Financial institutions were again the most affected victim group in 2014. Their total loss volume amounted to a good CHF 323 million. Financial institutions also had the highest average loss volume per case, at CHF 18 million. The second-highest loss volume, at CHF 137 million, was among investors. However, their average loss was considerably lower at 12.4 million Swiss francs, according to the report.

Zurich with the highest white-collar crime rate

As in previous years, the Zurich area recorded the most white-collar crime offenses in 2014, with 27 cases. At CHF 13.8 million, the average damage volume in the Zurich area was the highest in a regional comparison. The volume of damage per case was only half as high in Ticino, the second-ranked region, at CHF 6.7 million. In addition, the case with the highest damage volume was handled in Zurich.

Methodology: The "KPMG Forensic Fraud Barometer" is based on white-collar crime cases with a loss amount of at least CHF 50,000 that were closed by a Swiss criminal court in the reporting year and were reported on in the most important Swiss daily and weekly newspapers.

At the private emergency service Mobile Ärzte Allschwil, the permitted working hours were sometimes massively exceeded. This has led to a Kassensturz programThe company's founder, Michael Gloger, has now also admitted to the allegations, in which the Syna trade union and former employees made the allegations public. This was reported by the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung today.

The accusations are serious: according to the Syna trade union, employees sometimes had to work three 36-hour shifts in a row. There were also frequent 24-hour shifts without clear breaks. Night bonuses were also not paid and night-time rest periods were ignored.

Not least due to pressure from the canton, the company now wants to improve the inadequate recording of working hours by the summer with the help of Syna.

The new GHS hazard symbols are now finally coming into force in Switzerland.

The international system for hazard assessment and labeling of chemical products was proposed by the UN. The global harmonization of symbols is intended to provide better protection, but also simplifications in the trade of chemical products.

The symbols are now black on a white background and framed in red. Their appearance is thus intended to be reminiscent of warning signs in road traffic.

While the new labeling is still voluntary for mixed substances until June 1, 2015, the old labeling may only be used in sales after this date. From June 1, 2017, only the new labeling will be permitted.

The website Cheminfo.ch of the Federal Office of Public Health FOPH offers information material, risk tests and campaign material for the changeover.

Since the NSA surveillance affair and in the wake of various terrorist attacks around the world, there has been repeated controversy about whether intelligence surveillance should be expanded or rather restricted from a data protection point of view. Therefore, the lecture by Dr. Hans-Georg Maaßen at the annual Computas-The "DuD 2015" data protection congress, which will be held in Berlin on June 15 and 16, 2015, is eagerly awaited.

In addition, European data protection law continues to face realignment, and the draft German IT security law is being discussed, so conference participants are sure to learn a lot of new things.

This year, the problem of balancing national security interests and data protection will be addressed in particular depth, but the topic of cloud computing will also be dealt with intensively. In addition, many other topics will be discussed that may arise in the participants' everyday professional lives, such as app use, video surveillance or when employers use personality tests. Prominent experts, including Andrea Vosshoff, the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, and Ulrich Kelber, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, will be present to comment on current issues. In addition, data privacy and IT security officers from Deutsche Bahn, Daimler and the German Federal Employment Agency, among others, will report on their professional backgrounds.

However, most companies do not take this problem very seriously. This is shown by a recent study conducted by Deutsche Messe Interactive on behalf of Brainloop. According to the survey, only 52% of the respondents believe that their company's existence is at risk from the theft of intellectual property. 142 decision-makers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were asked how they assess the protection of their corporate data. The participating companies are major players in the economy that, without appropriate security measures, offer an attractive target for attacks. Around 56% of the companies employ between 1001 and 10,000 people. Another 30% have more than 10,000 employees.

Plagiarism caused by security leaks ruins countless years of work and endangers company livelihoods. Nevertheless, many companies oversleep the topic of security. Strong encryption of information is essential, especially when working with internal and external project members. The industrial sectors of electronics and electrical engineering as well as mechanical and plant engineering show a comparatively high level of understanding for this. In each of these industries, more than 60% responded that the loss of intellectual property could threaten the company's existence. This is in stark contrast to the energy sector, where only around one third of participants see it this way.

Across all industries, 94% of respondents say they generally attach high importance to know-how protection (high priority 33%, very high importance 61%). All the more surprising is the fact that companies nevertheless do not sufficiently secure their information. According to the survey, only 63% of the respondents have encrypted data transmission inside and outside the company.

In addition, not all corporate processes are perceived as equally sensitive. For example, the decision-makers surveyed rated the material on patents and development partnerships as worthy of protection at 66% and 57% respectively. However, only 38% of the respondents believe that supplier communications also contain sensitive data. Yet it is precisely in this area that much valuable information leaves the company.

When evaluating the results, some internal correlations and causes for security problems become clearer. For example, around 61% of the respondents answered that the IT departments are responsible for protecting confidential information. By contrast, only 4% of the decision-makers surveyed see their own employees as being responsible. At the same time, 56% of the companies state that sensitive data is stored centrally on the company server. As a rule, however, every employee has access to this data.

"The survey vividly shows the basic problem in many companies: Employees and decision-makers are not sufficiently involved in security concepts," says Thomas Deutschmann, CEO of Brainloop. "Whether their company has already suffered damage in the past, only 60% of the respondents were able to state. Also, 62% of the decision makers have no idea whether their company plans to use special software to protect confidential information."

In many companies, so-called first aiders, i.e. fire protection and evacuation assistants, are on duty.

The training of these specialists begins with theoretical information about first aid. The practical part of the training includes hazard prevention (exercises with small extinguishers, training on protective clothing) as well as a walk-through of the company's internal rooms and facilities; this trains the eye for evacuation routes, critical areas, weak points and faults.

In an emergency, first responders must not only remain calm, but also take the right steps quickly. This requires them to master the necessary know-how. That's why MediaSec is publishing a test in the next issue of "SicherheitsForum" - which will be published at the beginning of May. Fire protection and evacuation helpers can test and refresh their knowledge. A multi-page questionnaire puts interested parties through their paces.

Order today a free Sample number.

The "Occupational Safety" symposium  on May 4 in Zurich clearly shows that it is worthwhile for companies to address the issues of occupational safety and health protection even beyond the legal requirements. After all, absenteeism is not only a burden on the company economically, but also in terms of personnel - supervisors and colleagues are under greater strain during this phase.

Most occupational and leisure accidents are caused by human error. Successful occupational safety management therefore requires that employees are actively involved and that they assume their own responsibility.

This requires a holistic view of the issues: It is necessary to cover the legal framework, to recognize concrete hazards in one's own company, to communicate the right values and to provide safe work equipment and materials. The morning program of the conference revolves around these different perspectives.

Increasingly, however, the focus is not only on physical but also on psychological hazards: stress, burnout, mobbing and flexible working hours are leading to increasingly higher costs, not only for the IV but also for companies. The participants of the conference will learn about the interrelationships and possible solutions in a presentation.

The fire protection regulations of the Association of Cantonal Fire Insurers (VKF), or BSV 2015, which have been in force throughout Switzerland since the beginning of the year, can be critically examined for the first time in terms of their effectiveness on the basis of current project planning. What have the adjustments to the fire protection requirements achieved? How are things going in implementation? What empirical values do authorities, architects, fire protection planners, installers and building owners provide? And are the experiences of the various players congruent?

The Fire Protection Meeting June 3, 2015 in Zurich provides answers. Compared to the old set of rules, the 2015 BSV focuses particularly on the following points: on the one hand, the optimization of the cost-benefit ratio and, on the other hand, the liberalization of fire protection without sacrificing personal protection.
At the conference of the building insurance of the canton of Zurich, the implementation of the new regulations will be shown by means of concrete examples: The projects "Andreasturm" office tower in Zurich Oerlikon, the Limmattal Hospital, the Children's Hospital Zurich and "The Circle" at Zurich Airport will be intensively examined from a fire protection perspective.

The Zurich City Council has appointed François Aellen as the new Director of Environmental and Health Protection Zurich. He thus moves from the Civil Engineering and Waste Management Department to the Health and Environment Department, where he is taking on a new challenge after ten years with the Civil Engineering Department. François Aellen will succeed Bruno Hohl, who will retire on October 1.

François Aellen studied and obtained his doctorate at the ETH in Lausanne and Zurich. In 2005, the City Council elected him Director of the Civil Engineering Office of the City of Zurich. In this function, François Aellen has made a lasting contribution to shaping the city. He has many years of experience as a specialist and manager both in public administration and in the private sector.

The Health and Environment Department is pleased to have gained François Aellen, an experienced manager and head of service with strong strategic skills, who has many years of management experience and a large network.

The total loss of these seven cases, based on the KPMG Barometer to 200.5 million Swiss francs. Four of the cases involved online fraud. In these cases, high-value and fast-selling goods - such as cell phones of well-known brands - were offered on online platforms without the goods ever changing hands.

In another cybercrime case, a former IT employee of an electrical installation company still had external access to the company server even after his employment had ended. He took revenge on his former employer by manipulating the Outlook calendar, among other things. The resulting damage amounted to CHF 100,000. In another case, four men obtained credit card data on Internet portals. They subsequently used these to finance a lavish lifestyle, causing damage of Fr. 78,000.

Methodology: The "KPMG Forensic Fraud Barometer" is based on white-collar crime cases with a loss amount of at least CHF 50,000 that were closed by a Swiss criminal court in the reporting year and were reported on in the most important Swiss daily and weekly newspapers.

A wave of privatization is spreading in the police sector. Based on the new police law of the canton of Basel-Landschaft, more than 80 municipalities there had to decide by the end of February who should ensure peace and order on their territory in the future. The new law provides for a strict separation between the communal and the cantonal police services. In concrete terms, this means: Do the municipalities organize (and pay for) the 24-hour job themselves or do they also draw on cantonal support? The municipality must settle any service agreement with the cantonal police with a lump sum based on the number of inhabitants.

Today, it is apparent that both larger and smaller municipalities in Basel-Landschaft are outsourcing some of their police duties to private security companies. The reason: saving money is the order of the day. This is also the case in the municipality of Münchenstein, which has a population of around 12,000 and, with 8,000 jobs, is also an important employment and business location in the region. In an interview with Swiss television, the mayor of the municipality calculated that he was spending between 5,000 and 10,000 francs less a year by using private security companies.

As elsewhere, the Münchenstein municipal police cannot provide a 24-hour service. Therefore, in the past, additional services were taken over by the cantonal police. But this costs, especially since the canton is working with a new financing model, which, according to Münchenstein, entails massive additional expenses. For this reason, the municipality has been doing without the service of the cantonal police since the end of March.

If the phone rings at the Münchenstein police station, the citizen may be automatically forwarded to a contracted security company. For the time being, this will be a trial until the end of March 2016, according to reports. Then the people of Münchenstein will take stock and assess whether the "partial privatization" of the police service has proved successful. (rs)

(Edited 4/23/2015)

The International Labor Organization ILO proclaims Safe Day each year to raise global awareness of occupational safety and health issues.

A interactive website in English, French and Spanish, calls for building a culture of prevention in the workplace to make work safer worldwide.

To this end, on the one hand, employers should assume their responsibility with regard to occupational health and safety and take appropriate measures, and on the other hand, employees should know their rights and cooperate with the regulations. The governments of the individual countries are also addressed to form a good framework structure for the companies and their employees.