Security of Radioactive Sources in Switzerland

Swiss legislation on radiological protection fixes a procedure of licenses and inspection for the use of radioactive sources and radiological installations. The licensing authority is the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). According to the Code of conduct on the safety and security of radioactive sources published by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the FOPH manages an inventory of high activity sealed sources (HASS), which lists the most dangerous sources present in various Swiss companies. The FOPH regularly collects information on their state and location and reinforces the control system with local inspections in order to improve compliance with the above mentioned code of conduct. The transport, import and export of these sources is carried out according to international legislation and specific guidance of the Code of conduct. The revised Swiss legislation which came into force in 2018 now requires licensees of high activity sealed sources (Cat 1-3) to provide a security plan in order to guarantee a minimal security according to the goals set by the IAEA (Document NSS 11). In order to harmonize and facilitate the implementation of these additional security measures the FOPH in collaboration with other offices (Swiss Army, Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, SUVA) defined standards for the source security (physical protection, technical protection, organizational). These rules are currently being implemented. In this presentation we give an overview of the past, the present and the future steps of the project to secure HASS in Switzerland. (author)