L. P. Lestaevel et al.: Radioprotection 2026, 61( 2), 156 – 165 157
since the number of workers exposed to IR already exceeded 100.000. Consultation of data was also cumbersome.
The need for a computerized database was reinforced in the 1990s following the publication of Directive 90 / 641 Euratom on the operational protection of outside workers exposed to the risk of IR during their activities in controlled areas( Council Directive, 1990). This directive required in the long term to transfer dosimetric data“ in real time” between nuclear centers to have the knowledge of workers’ dosimetry in the previous workplace before determining and allowing their classification A or B in the new place. The first principles of such a computerized database were established by the Head Physicist of SCPRI / OPRI in charge of dosimetry( Biau, personal communication in 1996). He chose the name SISERI, i. e., the French acronym for Système d’ Information de la Surveillance de l’ Exposition( des travailleurs) aux Rayonnements Ionisants, for the data base register to come. The name SISERI has been used ever since.
The goals of this paper are: – First to present the register SISERI since its creation including its recent update in 2023;
– Then to develop the evolution of French occupational exposure to ionizing radiation in the main activity fields over the last fourteen years( 2005 – 2023), based on the results of annual reviews from SISERI data( annual reports are published in French on the IRSN web site https:// www. irsn. fr / savoir-comprendre / sante / bilans-annuels-lexposi tion-professionnelle-rayonnements-ionisants-france). These reports are now also available in a digital and interactive version at the following website: exproasnr. fr. The evolution of the number of cases exceeding the annual effective regulatory dose limit( 20 mSv in France) is also described;
– Finally, a comparison on occupational exposure to IR between European data from the European Platform for Occupational Radiation Exposure( ESOREX) and international data from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation( UNSCEAR) is presented.
2 SISERI: History and development
The SISERI project was funded at OPRI in the late 1990s by the ministry of Labor, after the transposition in 1998 of Directive 90 / 641 Euratom into French regulation. In 2002, this responsibility was transferred from OPRI to the Institute of radiological protection and nuclear safety( IRSN) by the article R. 4451-127 of the French Labor Code with the specific mission to centralize, verify and preserve the results of individual exposure measurements of workers( Code du travail R4451). After the completion of the software, the national register SISERI which creation is formalized by the article R 231-113 of the Labor Code( Code du travail R231) was officially launched in 2005. The software was updated after the publication of directive 2013 / 59 Euratom and in 2023 to improve some imperfections of the initial SISERI software when using it. The responsibility of management of SISERI has been transferred in 2024 by article R. 4451-134 of the French Labor Code( Code du travail R4451) to the Nuclear
Safety and Radiation Protection Authority( ASNR) after its creation resulting from the fusion of IRSN and the French competent authority( Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire � ASN).
2.1 Requirements for SISERI
The SISERI project was initiated to fulfill four major requirements of the French regulation: 1- each worker exposed to IR should benefit from dosimetric surveillance and especially those entering into a controlled zone should benefit from additional operational dosimetry, 2- the occupational physician, i. e., a medical doctor specialized in the evaluation of workers who classify them before they start to be appointed to a given post, should access all dosimetric data on line, 3- an access should be given to the workers to access their personal data and 4- the SISERI data base should handle all historical dosimetric data registered by SCPRI and OPRI in order to allow statistical analysis, including the reconstitution of personal data.
The minister of Labor requested OPRI to analyze the necessary requirements for this computerized database. To dimension the database, an estimation of the total number of dose values to be handled was necessary. Dosimetric data from EDF( électricité de France) workers in controlled zone of the nuclear power plants indicated that about 1.8 dose values were recorded on average every day per exposed worker. With mandatory operational dosimetry, the number of dose values to be recorded was foreseen to increase by a significant order of magnitude. Considering the total number of French workers exposed to IR and entering controlled zones, an estimate of a few tens of million dose values should be handled each year.
2.2 Functionalities of SISERI
SISERI fulfills the requirements of the French regulation regarding the prevention of the risk of exposure to ionizing radiation as indicated in articles R231-73 to R231-116 of the Labor Code( Code du travail R231) and R4451-1 to R4451-146 of the Labor Code( Code du travail R-4451) and especially the monitoring of individual worker exposure indicated in articles R4451-64 to R4451-81 of the Labor Code( Code du travail R-4451).
After the completion of the software, the national register SISERI which creation is formalized by the article R 231-113 of the Labor Code( Légifrance, 2003) was officially launched in 2005 with the following capabilities( Biau, 2011): – SISERI centralizes all the individual dosimetric measurements of workers’ exposure to IR from natural or artificial origin( including airline flight crews and radon exposure � all workers exposed to IR are concerned), according to their classification and modality of surveillance together with their administrative information( sector, profession, status, etc.). These data are transmitted online by the employers of the workers;
– To ensure data confidentiality, access is restricted through secure internet access to radiological protection stakeholders. Occupational doctors and Radiation Protection Officers have access to the SISERI data of the workers they monitor. This is also the case for labor or radiological protection inspectors. Workers can also obtain their own