Publications

Attaining and Maintaining a Continuity of Knowledge to Draw Safeguards Conclusions with Confidence

Blair, Dianna S.; Pickett, Chris P.; Bean, Robert B.

As the 21st century progresses, new nuclear facilities and the expansion of nuclear activities into new countries will require the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to place a higher reliance on attaining and maintaining a Continuity of Knowledge (CoK) of its safeguards information than is currently practiced. Additionally, a conceptual view of where and how CoK can be applied will need to evolve to support improved efficiency and efficacy of drawing a safeguards conclusion for each Member State. The ability to draw a safeguards conclusion for a Member State will be predicated on the confidence that CoK has been attained and subsequently maintained with respect to the data and information streams used by the IAEA. This confidence can be described as a function of factors such as elapsed time since the measurement, surveillance of attributes, authentication of information, historic knowledge of potential system failures, and the number and type of data collections. A set of general scenarios are further described for determining what is required to attain CoK and whether CoK has been maintained. A high-level analysis of example scenarios is presented to identify failures or gaps that could cause a loss of CoK. Potential areas for technological research and development are discussed for the next generation of CoK tools.