Airwave Vetting Toolkit
Glossary
Every term the toolkit uses, in plain English. Nothing here is assumed knowledge, so if a word on any screen is not clear it should be on this page.
- A vetting level
- Police forces clear non-police staff to a level of Non-Police Personnel Vetting, or NPPV. Level 1 is the lightest. Level 2 Abbreviated allows regular unescorted access to non-sensitive police premises and to police information up to official-sensitive. Level 2 Full adds unsupervised access to police computer systems. Level 3 is higher again. Most disputes turn on the single step from Level 2 Abbreviated to Level 2 Full.
- A talk group
- A radio channel on the Airwave network.
- TEA2
- The encryption standard licence an organisation needs in order to use Airwave.
- BS 7858:2019
- The British Standard for screening people who work in secure environments.
- BS 7958:2015
- The British Standard for running a CCTV control room.
- SIRO
- A Senior Information Risk Owner, the officer in a force who is accountable for information risk.
- NPPV
- Non-Police Personnel Vetting, the clearance a force gives to people who are not police staff. It runs from Level 1, through Level 2 Abbreviated and Level 2 Full, up to Level 3.
- BPSS
- The Baseline Personnel Security Standard, the basic pre-employment check used across government. It covers identity, right to work, criminal record and three years of employment history.
- Official-sensitive
- A government marking for information that needs care but is not secret. NPPV Level 2 Abbreviated already covers access to information marked official-sensitive.
- Secret
- A higher government marking than official-sensitive. Occasional access to material classified secret is one of the things that can justify NPPV Level 2 Full.
- Unsupervised access to police computer systems
- Being able to use a police computer system without a police officer or member of police staff alongside you. This is the one thing that separates NPPV Level 2 Full from Level 2 Abbreviated.
- ISSI
- The identity number of an individual Airwave radio terminal. A control room is usually given a range of them.
- Encryption key category
- The category of encryption key loaded into an Airwave terminal, which determines what the terminal is allowed to receive. The force sets it.
- SIA licence
- A licence issued by the Security Industry Authority, which public space CCTV operators must hold to do the job.
- Surveillance Camera Code of Practice
- The Home Office code for public space surveillance, against which many services self-assess.
- Annex B
- The evidence checklist at Annex B of the CCTV User Group's Airwave Vetting Protocol, the 23 things to have in front of you before you reply to a force.
The documents this toolkit refers to
the College of Policing's Vetting Authorised Professional Practice (May 2025)
The College of Policing
The national police vetting guidance. It sets out the vetting levels for people who are not police staff and the criteria a force applies to each of them.
Where a paragraph number is quoted in the five tests or in the letter, it comes from this document unless another one is named.
the Home Office Airwave Service Code of Practice (version 7.0, March 2025)
The Home Office
The code of practice for using the Airwave radio network.
Its paragraph 7.1 sets the Baseline Personnel Security Standard, or BPSS, as the standard for people who manage, handle or use an Airwave radio terminal.
Airwave Briefing 03/2019, Police Working with Local Authority CCTV Monitoring Centres (version 1.3)
Issued to police forces nationally
A national briefing to forces on this exact question, how the police work with local authority CCTV monitoring centres.
It states that the Baseline Personnel Security Standard is the national acceptable standard, and it prescribes no vetting level for local authority CCTV staff.
the CCTV User Group's Airwave Vetting Protocol
The CCTV User Group
The User Group's own guidance on how to answer a police vetting demand. You do not need to have read it.
It supplies the five questions this toolkit asks of any demand, and the evidence checklist at its Annex B.