Security in Museums – Recommendations from experts

CFPA Europe updated its European guideline for Security in museums. It includes solutions recommended from experts from all over Europe and is endorsed by Insurance Europe.

July 2022.

Museums and showrooms are places of aesthetic visualisation of cultural creativity that serve as trustees of our cultural heritage. As sites that collect, preserve, exhibit and explain art and culture, they often house unique objects, either on a permanent or temporary basis, many of which are irreplaceable and extremely valuable. Museums and showrooms therefore have a special responsibility: they need to protect the “objects d’art” and collectors’ items entrusted to them from a plethora of risks in the best possible manner. This applies to smaller as well as bigger museums.

Therefor CFPA-Europe has updated its European guideline dealing with this challenge: “Security Guidelines for Museums and showrooms” (Guideline No. 05 : 2022 / S). These Guidelines provide assistance to operators of museums and showroom as well as to risk carrier (e.g. insurers). It helps identifying risks and developing strategies facing these risks. Recently Insurance Europe, the European insurance and reinsurance federation, has endorsed these guidelines.

The guidelines have been designed to be particularly useful for smaller or medium size museums and private collections. However, most of the content of this guidance document is applicable to museums and collections of all sizes. These Security Guidelines can also be used as reference during the planning stage of a building to help both the architect as well as the museum executive responsible for security and safety of the objects. In order to meet their special responsibility, a museum’s management needs to implement a systematic protection scheme that clearly defines and documents the necessary structural protection measures as well as the organisational safeguards. Such a protection scheme would typically include a specific risk assessment from which it derives protection concepts against identified risks.

The objective of these Security Guidelines is to make operators and supporters of museums, security officers, planners and the police aware of the various risks as well as the different options of security technology with a view to burglary/theft, fire protection and protection from natural hazards and water damage in museums and showrooms. They provide non-binding recommendations to parties involved for developing an effective protection concept (structural/organisational/electronic) against the risks outlined here.

The guideline is available for free download under cfpa-e.eu.