This article highlightes similarities and diff erences between safety and security, they are both about protecting assets from threats/hazards. The discussions of security and safety has lead to a possible defi nition of security. By taking the diff erences between security and safety into consideration it is possible to use safety management strategies in security management as well. Coordination of security and safety management is possible, especially, in the context of human security approaches. Human security analysis looks at threats to fulfi lment of basic values in people’s lives. It seeks to reorient use of the prioritizing concept ‘security’, towards securing basic needs of ordinary people. A focus on how people live and can live, and the function of looking at priority values and priority threats, require a transdisciplinary holistic perspective, at least periodically, in order to see linkages and to draw comparisons across ‘sectors’ to try to ensure priority attention to the threats most relevant in the given time and place. In this article we examine these themes with special reference to ‘personal security’, a prominent area in human security policy and research, that stands in contrast to the predominant fi elds of policy attention in the 20th century: national state security and economic growth. In this context, some of the common properties and diff erences between terms and techniques in the two communities are discussed with the aim of reconciling potential confl icts and exploring potential for cooperation.