The Dangerous Illusion of "Security" & "Risk": Why Your Expert Advice Might Just Be Subjective Gossip

Tony Ridley, MSc, CSyP, FSyI, SRMCP. Originally published 31 July 2026.

Two expert witnesses can take the stand in the same case, both use the term “security risk” to describe the same event, and mean two entirely different things by it. Neither is technically wrong, because the security, risk and safety professions have never agreed on what these words mean in the first place. That absence of a shared vocabulary is not a semantic quibble. It is the condition under which boards, courts and executives are asked to rely on expert advice.

This piece examines how deep that linguistic drift actually runs, using corpus-linguistic analysis of some of the field’s most cited reference works, including a long-standing national security risk standard and a major academic handbook, to test whether the industry’s core terms hold a consistent, evidence-based meaning or whether they have quietly become whatever each author needs them to mean. It looks at how that drift gets dressed up as authority through citation, and asks a harder question underneath it: if a risk assessment cannot be repeated by a different practitioner, using the same definitions, and arrive at the same conclusion, is it still assessment, or is it opinion wearing the language of science? For anyone who commissions, relies on or delivers security and risk advice, the answer changes what “expert” is actually worth.

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