Week #12 Assignment

Technique required in Private Security of Cultural Institutions

Gregorio Marrero

[Institutional Affiliation(s)]

Author Note

Why does the practice of private security require sophisticated techniques of theft and damage prevention and protection in the world of art and cultural institutions?

Technique for Security of Cultural Institutions

A cultural institution, like libraries, archives, museums and art galleries, works for the prevention and promotion of culture. In recent times, there has been quite a rapid increase in theft and vandalism of cultural artifacts which create an alarming situation for all the cultural institutions of the world. This is mainly because the security involved in the protection of these priceless cultural artifacts is lagging in modern techniques required for securing these cultural symbols. A thorough overhaul is needed to make the private security involved in the protection of these artifacts up to speed. The question is why do the states required to train their private security staff in the new sophisticated techniques of security? First and foremost, the threats to private institutions have acquired a new and dangerous dimension. Take the example of the recent phenomena of the Great Chinese Art Heists CITATION Tim19 \l 1033 (Chung, 2019). The global law enforcing authorities are blaming the planning and execution of these heists on the Chinese Government. To counter such a threat, the private security should be trained in advanced hand-to-hand combat and weapon skills, should the thief turn out to be highly trained state assassins. Secondly, private security should also be required to be trained for stopping technology-assisted heists. These days, museums have electronic checkpoints and RFID tags that can be hacked easily. Furthermore, the CCTV cameras and even metal detectors can be stopped from fulfilling their purpose by the use of hacking software that can even be carried around in one's smartphones. The private security staff of cultural institutions must be trained to recognize and stop these attacks before they do serious damage. The recent Petya attack is living proof CITATION Sar19 \l 1033 (Cascone, 2019). Lastly, the private security is required to be trained in sophisticated techniques of security to counter the new threat of terrorism, or at least contain it on ground zero. Any terrorist group can destroy a priceless collection of the nation's heritages just to make a statement regarding its superiority. As the cultural heritage is the yoke that binds a nation together, such an act can have a detrimental effect on a state's morale. To conclude, these requirements for damage protection and prevention to cultural institutions should be met at all costs if a nation truly values its cultural institutions.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cascone, S. (2019, July 22). Hackers Saw the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco as Ripe for a Ransom Attack. Are Other Cultural Institutions Next? Artnetnews, pp. https://news.artnet.com/market/hackers-attack-asian-art-museum-san-francisco-1604188.

Chung, T. (2019). Treasures from the Middle Kingdom: China’s Hunt for Lost Antiquities. The Center for Art Law.