Covert Reporting in Safety

Miles Copeland wanted to play music. The 1930s meant swing jazz, crowded rooms, and a trumpet that could blare the notes across a dance floor.

His parents wanted college and medicine studies for him. As a parent, I get it.

For Miles, college felt like a detour. He dropped-out, went on the road, and learned how to work a bandstand, landing paid gigs with Ray Noble, Count Bassie, and the Glenn Miller band.

It was the life. But it was also 1941.

Pearl Harbor changed his path. He enlisted in the Army.

He tested high on intelligence exams, so high he was accused of cheating.

He was made to take the test again, and scored even higher. This caught the attention of the OSS. And so, he became a spy. (They did indeed think he cheated both times and that is what impressed them).

Public life. Private work. He understood both.

Two Folders

Picture a safety product manager in the glove space with two folders on the desk.

One is stamped EN388. It ties back to a Declaration of Conformity, a signed statement that the product meets the EU’s PPE rules.

The underlying technical file sits with the manufacturer or EU representative and can be pulled by authorities. In practice, buyers can trace certificates and paperwork.

The other folder is stamped ANSI. It lives in the office drawer, somewhere near the break room.

It may never be seen again and does not have to be shown to anyone.

Same glove. Same factory.

Two different testing standards. Sometimes, two different results.

I have written before about cut and abrasion testing. EN388 uses the Martindale method for abrasion. ANSI uses the Taber rotary platform.

Different motions, different surfaces, different results.

A glove that looks like a fortress under EN388 can land mid-tier under ANSI.

One outcome is traceable through a conformity file. The other is not.

Miles, Part Two

During the war, Miles was an artist, hobnobbing with likes of Hemingway. He also recruited assets and gained valuable information for the U.S.

After the war, he helped wind down the OSS and draw up parts of the blueprint for the CIA.

Eventually he took a “State Department job” as a jazz cultural attaché in Damascus. In secret rooms in Washington, he was also known as “Our guy in the Middle East”, running the operations there.

His real job ran through cables and briefings. He could play music in public and run operations in private.

He did both, but the audience saw only one.

That is the CE and ANSI split.

Filing the Test

Information security has a simple frame in the CIA: the CIA Triad.

Confidentiality. Integrity. Availability.

Oddly enough, it also fits product testing.

Confidentiality: in the U.S., ANSI results often stay inside the company.
Integrity: in Europe, third-party routes and traceable paperwork create a natural check.
Availability: in Europe, a file can be pulled on request to be referenced by buyers.

In the U.S., only the people holding the folder can see it.

And, you can see the difference in how problems surface.

In March of this year, Ireland’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission recalled the Hedkayse R1 Youth and Adult rugby headguard. It failed to demonstrate conformity, carried an invalid CE mark, and did not meet essential health and safety requirements for PPE.

The paperwork was on record, so the decision moved quickly. Parents, players, and retailers could see what failed and why.

Meanwhile, last year in the U.S., QVC recalled more than a million pairs of Temp-tations oven gloves.

One hundred sixty-two complaints. Ninety-two reports of burns. Six years of sales.

SIX YEARS!

The gloves were sold to handle hot cookware. Oven gloves!

There was no heat rating on the product and no public test record to check. The hazard became clear only after customers were hurt!

Two markets. Same assumption of trust. Different paths to the truth.

The Takeaway

We’ve been talking recently about the same company selling the same product.

That is where the similarities end once the product goes global.

The differences in testing and in how results are supported make little sense from the product’s point of view. Fewer products are built for a single market these days.

Regulators are tasked with protecting their people.

Yet when the same product is communicated in two different ways, or not communicated at all, you have to ask why.

The spy metaphor is a reach, admittedly, but the question is simple:

Why are U.S. companies not obligated to share test results, while Europe obligates documentation and traceability as part of the process?

It can feel cloak and dagger, but does not have to.

Stay in touch 

If you enjoyed this piece, please reach out, I’d love to hear from you.

You can contact me at [email protected] or LinkedIn.

In addition, you can read all about Miles Copeland here, and listen to his son, Stewart, jam with his band, the Police, here.

Stay safe out there!