The following appeared in and is reproduced with the concent of the ARCA Journal.

Every year art thefts occur in private and public sites that otherwise have good after-hours security. Increasingly, many such thefts happen during business hours when after-hours security systems have been turned off.[1]

RFID (radio frequency identification) tags[2] are touted as the cutting-edge solution to this kind of art theft—and more. At its core, “RFID” just means “any method of identifying unique items using radio waves.”[3] When attached to artworks, these tags are intended to alert security to any attempt to tamper with or steal an artwork—mostly paintings.

RFID tags purport to add a layer of security to the protection of valuable assets, especially when public access requires turning off other layers of security.[4] And even when other security systems are on, an independent wireless sensor network would still be another strong barrier to theft. 

Even more interesting, RFID art security systems often advertise the ability to “track and trace valuable assets”—not merely in the sense of bookkeeping and inventory control, but also in the sense of tracking an asset’s physical location. Many have the impression that, like GPS, RFID systems routinely track a fairly precise spatial position of a tagged asset, tracking it in real time as it moves from room to room, or even city to city.

In an earlier ARCA article[5], founder of the Museum Security Network, Ton Cremers, dashes a number of misconceptions about RFID security. He argues that the RFID systems installed in many museums are, in fact, expensive overkill, since these institutions don’t use or need the elaborate trace and tracking capabilities that typically led them to buy the complex hardware and software package in the first place. He points out:

1. The installed RFID systems can’t geolocate stolen artwork outside a building. And setting up an elaborate interior sensor network that would continually locate the precise position of an artwork would be unnecessary and so expensive that no museum has done this.
2. Basic RFID systems are expensive in terms of hardware and installation.[6] Moreover, they require the operation of a complicated software package on a host computer. This means costly maintenance and training to run the software. And what happens if the software gets corrupted or a virus crashes the system?
3. In the end, museums only use their RFID sensors for motion and vibration detection, not asset tracking. After all, in order to surreptitiously move a painting across a room, one would first have to set off the tag’s motion/vibration detector. But one doesn’t need “RFID” for that. Simply purchase wireless motion sensor tags that report to a simple control panel. This kind of system is cheaper and less complicated.
4. Finally, Cremers argues that these RFID systems are unreliable—the frequencies they typically broadcast on can be jammed[7] or subject to interference (some by garage door openers and children’s toys).

A response to Cremers

I agree with points (1) and (2) above, but (3) and (4) need clarification.

It is true that, all other things equal, a hardware-based motion sensor network, run from a control panel, provides the same degree of theft protection, but without the higher degree of vulnerability, cost and complexity of a software, pc-based RFID system. Even better, a hardware-based sensor network can have an intuitive pc interface, with many of the add-on capabilities of the current RFID packages. Even if the computer goes down, the hardware-based network will still send out security alerts through a regular landline or cell phone network. And buttons or screens on the control panel can still manage the network.

However, as Cremers suggests, in the public’s mind the term “RFID” is strongly associated with tracing and tracking merchandise. For this reason, vendors of simple wireless motion detector sensors for artwork often don’t claim or think of their sensors as “RFID,” yet technically they are.[8] The jamming and interference problem is the same for these motion sensors as for any other RFID sensor.

Cremers neglects to mention an important standard feature of most wireless security sensors that deals with this interference problem: a sensor tag typically signals its status back to a host computer or central control panel at regular periodic intervals—be it every 2 seconds, minutes, or hours. Each of these status notifications essentially tells central control (be it a control panel or host PC), “I’m here and operating normally.”[9]

If false alerts didn’t exist, and if a tag is programmed to check in with central control (say) every minute, then a missing check-in would alert security to investigate, and a thief has no time to pull off the theft.[10] So RFID sensor tags do more than detect motion or vibration.

In practice, however, central control will often not notify security of any particular signal failure, since there would be too many false alerts. As Cremers says, for many RFID systems, signal interference is not unusual–in some cases so routine that security personnel won’t take missing status checks seriously until 20 minutes have passed. In practice, it will be difficult for a thief to accurately time such lapses. But what if the thief somehow knew the precise timing of the last successful status check, and also knew he could successfully steal a painting in, say, under 3 minutes? If false alerts are an issue, Cremers’ concerns about tag interference or jamming remain.

Nevertheless, top security vendors are addressing even such unlikely scenarios. In particular, more sophisticated sensor systems can effectively and quickly overcome jamming or interference, making any check-in failure a significant security event.[11] If false alerts are not an issue, then an effective security network will never give a thief the time to pull off an unnoticed theft.

It is true, as Cremer says, that certain buildings, wall material, and space configurations pose challenges to effective RFID or sensor placement. But it is also important to note that the vast majority of these challenges can be met by placing extra boosters (aka “repeaters”) and readers between a given sensor and central control.

Of course museums may want to combine security with inventory tracking and include the bells and whistles. That’s fine, but, as Cremers points out, security comes first, and it’s important not to confuse the use of sensors and RFID for inventory tracking and control versus theft protection.

Conclusion:

Clearly a good motion detector sensor network will deter or prevent thieves sneaking away with a piece. This represents a very large segment of art thefts. Moreover, having an independent layer of protection on valuable artwork serves to discourage nighttime theft.

The case of brazen armed robbery is less clear. It probably wouldn’t make any difference in well-planned robberies where crooks are confident they can be in and out in a few minutes, long before police arrive. Yet surely in most cases, knowing a theft would immediately and automatically alert the police would make a substantial difference. It would raise the risk to the perpetrators in general. The risks of encountering time-delaying accidents, unanticipated traffic, or an extra security guard who shouldn’t be there, etc., could all be fatal to a successful robbery, and thus deter. Hence wireless anti-theft sensor technology is here to stay.

Among all the accolades given to various works of art over the centuries, perhaps none is more unusual than this one: most-stolen. The long-reigning champion is Jan van Eyck’s Ghent’s Altarpiece.

The nearly 500-year old painting weighs two tons, and comprises twelve separate panels. As the first piece to demonstrate the versatility of oil painting, its importance in the history of art is unquestioned. Art Daily chronicles its history of theft and recovery:

Since its completion in 1432, [it] has been the victim of thirteen separate crimes, including seven separate thefts; it has been looted in three different wars, burned, forged, smuggled, illegally sold, hidden, hunted by Napoleon and then the Nazis, ransomed, and rescued by Austrian double-agents. (The runner-up, a portrait by Rembrandt, has been stolen only four times.)

In October 2010, Public Affairs released Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World’s Most Coveted Masterpiece. Written by Noah Charney, this 336-page real-life thriller unravels the truth behind each of the thefts. In the process Charney sheds light on the fascinating history of art crime.

Noah Charney is the author of the international bestselling novel The Art Thief and the founding director of The Association for Research into Crimes against Art, an international non-profit think tank. Currently professor of art history at the American University of Rome, he lives in Italy with his wife.