Reposted from The Art Newspaper

One of the biggest challenges for police and customs officials in combating the illegal trade in looted antiquities is in identifying stolen objects. While drugs or weapons are readily identifiable as illegal imports, stolen antiquities can be passed off as modern copies or legitimate imports if they are accompanied by convincing documentation. Without expert archaeologists on the spot, it is hard for law enforcers to know the difference.

German information technology experts are developing an app to help them, and a prototype may be ready for practical trials by the middle of the year, says Martin Steinebach, the head of media security and IT forensics at the Fraunhofer Institute in Darmstadt. The new app, known as KIKU, uses machine learning—a subset of artificial intelligence (AI)—to identify an object from photos and to help to ascertain whether it may have been illegally looted or excavated from an archaeological site. 

The technology is similar to other image-recognition software such as Google Cloud’s Vision and can be operated on a smartphone, Steinebach says. Police or customs officers take photographs of a suspect object from a variety of angles, guided by the app to ensure adequate lighting and the correct perspectives.

The photos are then sent to KIKU’s deep-learning network, which searches for similar artefacts and relevant information from archaeologists—such as place of origin and date. This provides an initial basis for law enforcers to judge whether the item might be looted. In a second stage, the app compares the object with police databases of stolen cultural property; Interpol’s, for instance, contains more than 51,000 stolen objects from 134 countries. If there is a match, the app sounds an alarm.

Described by German Culture Minister Monika Grütters as an “innovative, sustainable and practical contribution” to the fight against the illegal trade in cultural heritage, KIKU has won funding of up to €500,000 from a government programme to promote AI technology in a project running until the end of this year. The Fraunhofer Institute, one of the biggest scientific research organisations in the world, is developing KIKU in co-operation with CoSee, a Darmstadt-based software company.

In 2018, Interpol registered more than 91,000 stolen items of cultural heritage and almost 223,000 items seized by law enforcement agencies worldwide. The starting point for KIKU was a German government-funded research project, ILLICID, which examined the trade in ancient cultural objects in Germany. Among the findings was that investigating agencies and supervisory authorities lack the expertise to address the illicit trafficking in ancient artefacts. 

“It is not currently possible to efficiently monitor the trade or to appropriately enforce existing and/or new due diligence requirements governing the handling of ancient cultural objects,” the report says. Effective technological tools could “significantly relieve the burden on customs authorities, experts and investigatory agencies”. 

KIKU uses the data and images provided by archaeologists at the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation for around 2,500 antiquities in the Berlin collections. But that is a relatively small pool of images and it requires many more, says Steinebach: “At least ten times that” is needed. “The app can learn distinctive scripts or shapes. If we have enough examples, the app can recognise them. The more images there are, the better it works.” In addition, the team is using “transfer learning” from existing networks and adding artefacts from online museum databases and catalogues.

As an example of how the app could work, Steinebach says that if an object is imported with forged provenance documents, it may be possible to prove they are fake if KIKU enables customs officials to identify the object correctly. “Say the documents claim it is from the 16th century but the app identifies it as dating from 600BC—that gives customs officials a very good starting point,” he says. The app is not designed to detect forgeries, he adds.

One key challenge is the lack of existing records for recently excavated antiquities. However, as long as an object bears a resemblance to other known items of the same epoch, the app should be able to identify its place of origin and age, Steinebach says. “But you never know what might have been excavated; it could be something the like of which has never been seen before.” 

Steinebach doesn’t expect that the app will eradicate the need for archaeology experts in identifying objects any time soon; rather, it will serve as an initial reference for law enforcers, who would then need to contact an expert on the basis of KIKU’s findings for a detailed evaluation. But he adds that the more KIKU is used, the better it will become at identifying objects, thanks to the machine-learning technology.

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Reposted from Security Management Magazine

Could having the pilot snoozing in the cockpit make your flight safer? Studies report that short naps can improve a pilot’s alertness, especially when shifts stretch across multiple time zones and long hours. 

Recent research on consumer opinions shows that the American public is leery of this, but one study found that pilots who took short, 40-minute naps (called controlled rest in position or CRIP when in the cockpit) had faster reaction times and higher subjective alertness. 

Pilot fatigue leads to slower reaction times, reduced attentiveness, and impaired memory, which could result in inaccurate flying, forgetting routine tasks, poor decision making, and accidents. 

Long shifts with few breaks have similar effects on professionals in other high-concentration roles, such as physicians, first responders, and security operations center (SOC) personnel. While midflight napping remains a decision for aviation regulators, security leaders have many options to relieve stress for SOC operators and security personnel.

“Global security operations center (GSOC) managers need to consider the neuroscience of the brain and what we can reasonably expect people to be able to do,” says Sarah Powell, director of emergency management at Temple University. “It’s a common job description for a GSOC operator: you must be able to multitask in a crisis. And that’s just something human brains aren’t wired to be able to do in a stress response.” 

Stress responses are different from typical overwork or fatigue; a stressor triggers physical and psychological changes that together form the “fight or flight” response: faster breathing, quickened pulse, and tense muscles. In the short term, the stress response heightens alertness, but prolonged exposure to these high-stress situations—particularly in conjunction with long shift lengths—eventually takes a toll on productivity, efficiency, and retention, Powell says. Any tasks involving the prefrontal cortex of the brain—the area responsible for reasoning, rationality, and executive decision making—will be hampered by the stress response. 

Employee retention can also be impacted. Working in SOCs is so stressful that 65 percent of operators are considering changing careers, according to a June 2019 Ponemon Institute study, Improving the Effectiveness of the SOC. More than 70 percent of the IT security practitioners surveyed said that the increasing workload SOC staff face was causing burnout. Leading factors behind this stress included the around-the-clock on-call culture, the inability to recruit and retain expert personnel, the inability to capture actionable intelligence, the lack of resources, and the “complexity and chaos” within the SOC.

Nearly 50 percent of respondents said their SOC teams would benefit from stress management programs and psychological counseling, and 39 percent said they would like to have better support and recognition from senior leadership. 

The task saturation inherent in SOCs eventually runs up against a wall; operators have only so much bandwidth to devote to different tasks, especially in a stressful situation, Powell says. 

“You need to find ways to alleviate task saturation and reliance on the prefrontal cortex,” she adds. This could include automating some basic tasks, devising checklists for operators to follow, and practicing scenarios to develop a reflexive, natural response to high-pressure situations. 

In the Ponemon study, two-thirds of respondents said automating the SOC workflow would most ease the pain of working in the high-stress environment, reducing the burden of responding to repetitive or low-complexity issues. 

Another factor that can lessen tension on security monitors while improving results is adjusting shift lengths and assignments. 

Changing from a traditional 12-hour shift schedule to shorter, seven- to nine-hour shifts enables operators to remain alert and provide better customer service throughout their shifts without “hitting a wall,” says Kerry Jones, cofounder and director of independent remote monitoring center Professional Surveillance Management (PSM).

The 12-hour shifts are common practice but tough on employees when factoring in other off-the-clock commitments. Between a 12-hour shift, a one-hour commute, and seven hours of sleep, employees are left with very little time for their family, social life, or self-care, Jones says. 

PSM rotates its shifts in a predictable pattern, so employees will work afternoons for four days, followed by a few days’ rest, three night shifts, and another rest period before repeating the cycle. This program lets afternoon (4:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.) and night shift (11:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.) personnel balance their professional and personal lives more effectively and lower their risk of burnout, Jones says. 

She notes that since implementing this program, PSM’s team of 12 operators only took four sick days in 2018. Jones and the operators attribute this to the more balanced work schedule. 

The schedule also produced a high retention rate, which benefits PSM both in hiring costs and system development. Experienced monitors’ input is crucial because PSM writes and uses its own software. 

“They live and breathe remote monitoring,” Jones says. “We nurture the individual talents of the team. One of my favorite sayings is ‘Why hire chess masters and play the pieces yourself?’ I could sit at a remote operating terminal for 100 years and never be as good as my senior operators.” 

At PSM, each operator’s role is slightly different. One operator who enjoys writing is tasked with writing incident reports and contributing to the company’s blog. Another detail-oriented operator carries out internal audits. 

“If somebody has a strength, then as a human being that strength shouldn’t be left dormant,” Jones says. “If the company benefits from that strength, it’s a bonus.” 

Organizations that do not make changes to their 12-hour shifts will likely lose employees, Powell says.

“You want to think about your duty of care, of course, but you also want to think about what it means to your organization to have high turnover,” she explains. “If you want to retain people, you have to figure out ways to make the job bearable, even fun, and challenging in a good way—find opportunities for development, learning, practice, and team building.”

“In the contract security world, there is oftentimes a treatment of employees as just bodies to fill the post, and that will only get you so far,” Powell continues. “You are not going to have the same level of engagement.” 

For the operators’ health and wellbeing, she adds that GSOC managers should build in downtime, breaks, and opportunities for stress relief on the job. When designing SOCs, leadership should ensure break areas are separate enough from the workspace that employees feel they can shift their focus away from a crisis and unwind. 

If managers have a period where they have to wind up operations, Powell notes, afterward ensure there is a period of recalibration where staff can recover. For extended high-stress situations, such as managing an ongoing crisis like a natural disaster, she recommends rotating staff out of stressful positions and ensuring there is enough redundancy to keep the SOC running without overtaxing key personnel. 

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Reposted from Observer

Since the beginning of the pandemic, museums and galleries have been particularly vulnerable to theft: without the constant stream of visitors prompting the watchful eyes of security guards, institutions have been standing empty and static for long stretches of time. This is the perfect time for burglars to take advantage of lapses in security, and they know it. On Monday, Italian officials arrested a 36-year-old man on suspicion of receiving stolen goods after a 500-year-old copy of Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci was found stashed in his bedroom cupboard. According to Italian police, the painting belongs to the collection of the Doma Museum at the San Domenico Maggiore church in Naples.

However, the Doma Museum has been shut down for months, and apparently, no one at the institution noticed that the painting, which is believed to have been painted by the artist Giacomo Alibrandi, was gone or even reported to the police that it was missing. “The painting was found on Saturday thanks to a brilliant and diligent police operation,” Naples prosecutor Giovanni Melillo said in a statement. “There was no complaint on the matter and in fact we contacted the (church) prior, who was not aware of its disappearance, as the room where the painting is kept has not been open for three months. Whoever took the painting wanted it, and it’s plausible that it was a commissioned theft by an organization working in the international art trade.”

In 2020, a similar series of thefts occurred when the Frans Hals painting Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer disappeared from Museum Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden in Leerdam, which was also shut down due to the virus. Shortly before that theft took place, another Dutch museum nearby, the Singer Laren Museum, was robbed of Spring Garden by Vincent van Gogh. Whether or not all these thefts are connected remains to be seen, but it’s clear that museums need to be more vigilant in protecting their collections, even and especially when no one’s visiting.

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Reposted from Security Management Magazine & Dr. Jennifer Hesterman

Whether your organization is large or small, public or private, there are basic security tactics that can protect your building and occupants from unwanted attention or attack.

The goals of hardening are to deter, deflect, divert, and deny. You always want to project the image of a secure, impenetrable operation to someone conducting pre-operational surveillance, passing by as part of a group during a protest, or looking for a crime of opportunity with no premeditation. Hardening is an offensive security measure; it stops the fight before it starts.

U.S. military bases are protected by using layered defense or rings of security, a technique easily cross-applied to other organizations. Consider the center ring as protecting the most precious asset—possibly leadership, important records, or special equipment, such as servers. If the bad actor can make it here, he or she would inflict the maximum amount of damage. The ring just outside the center includes employees, the front desk, cafeteria space, and visitors. The third ring is the public space outside the entrance, such as parking areas, sidewalks, open spaces, or woods. The next layer consists of streets, public transportation, pedestrians, and businesses. Finally, the outer ring encompasses the surrounding community, including social media—an important virtual community.

Each ring presents an opportunity to harden, offering the chance to create an obstacle or tripwire against bad actors. Working from the outside-in, consider the security language used on your website and in event advertising, such as “plan extra time for bag checks.” This portrays a heightened level of security that may serve as a deterrent. Use free applications that search social media for threats to your property, organization, or leadership. This extends your situational awareness; for example, a shopping mall client using this service was alerted to a large group of teenagers planning a destructive flash mob on Twitter.

Next, build relationships with those on your perimeter. When I was the Vice Commander at Andrews Air Force Base, the home of Air Force One, I knew the managers of the hotels, fast food franchises, and gas stations surrounding our property. They were force multipliers, my eyes and ears outside the wire; if someone was conducting surveillance or discussing a plot, their help could provide early—or sometimes the only—warning. This relationship paid off several times, as they served a critical overwatch role, identifying possible danger.

Moving closer to the building, consider the deterrent effect of fencing and bollards—there are many attractive options. Have security-related signage on the property such as “cameras in use,” “regularly patrolled by security,” “private property,” or “no trespassing.”

If you have security personnel, their vehicles should be visible to the public. If not, off-duty police officers will sometimes agree to lend theirs. Security personnel should be on foot, out and about, politely challenging strangers, looking for problems, detecting surveillance, and providing a presence. Don’t forget to secure your parking lot and structures; you must protect employees and visitors, and incidents that start there could bring danger to your doorstep.

In these uncertain times, people want to feel safe, so don’t be afraid to enact security measures. Limit the number of entrances, try to keep exterior doors locked, and use electronic keys, codes, or badges to enter. Have a separate visitor entrance and screening area for quick verification, bag checks, and badging.

Front desk personnel are the next line of defense and must be trained in “verbal judo” or other de-escalation techniques to deal with unauthorized or angry visitors. They should have access to a panic button or hotline to dial 911, and they should not be afraid to use it.  

Coming further inward, offices, conference rooms, and restrooms should have doors opening outward into the hallway to prevent being kicked in. Doors should lock on the inside, with either no windows to the hallway or a window shade. Pre-position bottled water and snacks like protein bars in case of an extended shelter-in-place.

Regularly train for crisis and have a communication plan. Talking about threats lessens fear, as people are empowered with knowledge of how to take care of themselves and each other.  

By following these steps, your property, its occupants, and your precious assets will be more protected by layers of defense and rings of security. As former CIA and FBI Director William Webster said, “Security is always seen as too much, until the day it’s not enough.”

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Reposted from Artnet News

The German government has announced that it will hand out €32 million ($38 million) this year to national cultural institutions undertaking modernization projects, including updating security systems. More than 73 cultural venues across Germany will benefit from the grant.

“Preserving our cultural infrastructure is one of the most important cultural policy goals of the federal government, especially in these times of crisis,” German culture minister Monika Grütters said in a statement. She added: “culture creates identity and cohesion.”

The funds are being directed especially at venues outside Germany’s bustling cosmopolitan hubs, and to rural parts of the country.

Security concerns at German cultural sites have been a major preoccupation in the wake of several high-profile robberies, including ones at the Green Vault in Dresden in 2019 and the Bode Museum in Berlin in 2017.

Last fall, a number of ancient artifacts were also vandalized at the Altes Museum in Berlin by an unknown perpetrator.

The Alte Pinakothek, the preeminent museum in Munich known for its significant collection of Old Master paintings, has earmarked some of the money to boost its security systems. Corvey Castle, a UNESCO world heritage site in the North Rhine-Westphalia that dates back to 844, has done the same.

Other beneficiaries include the state art collection in Düsseldorf and the Regensburg Cathedral and the Völklingen Ironworks building in the Saarland.

Museums and galleries across Germany have been closed since the beginning of November. At the beginning of this month, state leaders met virtually and decided to extend lockdown measures until the end of January at the earliest. Compensation programs are in place to help venues with losses incurred during this time.

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Reposted from The New York Times

Federal and local authorities across the country pressed their hunt this weekend for the members of the angry mob that stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, as Washington’s mayor issued an urgent appeal to start preparing immediately for more potential violence before, during and after the inauguration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Following one of the most stunning security lapses in the city’s history, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser sent a firmly worded letter on Saturday to the Department of Homeland Security, asking officials to move up to Monday the implementation of heightened security measures that are otherwise set to begin on Jan. 19, just one day before Mr. Biden’s swearing-in.

Ms. Bowser’s call to action, which came as law enforcement officers in several states made arrests related to the assault on the Capitol, was echoed Sunday by Senator Roy Blunt, the Missouri Republican who is charged with overseeing the planning of the inaugural celebration.

The Capitol complex, typically a hive of activity, remained cut off from its surroundings Sunday night by troop deployments and an imposing scrim of seven-foot-tall, unscalable fencing. Still in shock from the worst breach of the building in more than two centuries, lawmakers were expected to turn their attention this week to a second slate of impeachment charges against President Trump, who has said little about the rampage he helped incite — in part because social media companies, like Twitter and Facebook, have either banned him or severely limited his use of their platforms.

Security experts warned this weekend that some far-right extremist groups have now started to focus attention on Inauguration Day and are already discussing an assault similar to the one on the Capitol, which led to the sacking of congressional offices and the deaths of at least five people, including a Capitol Police officer.

As of Sunday, nearly 400 people had joined a private group online dedicated to what is being billed as the “Million Militia March,” an event scheduled to take place in Washington on Jan. 20. On Parler, a social media site popular on the far right that is in danger of being taken offline because of rampant talk of violence, commenters were debating what tools they should bring to the march, mentioning everything from baseball bats to body armor to assault rifles.

“We took the building once,” one person posted. “We can take it again.”

While most of the chatter online appears to be directed toward Inauguration Day, some on the right have argued that pro-Trump activists should instead gather once again on Capitol Hill and hold other rallies in cities outside Washington on Jan. 17. Over the weekend, fliers began to circulate on Parler and in private groups on the chatting services WhatsApp and Signal, calling for an “Armed march on Capitol Hill and all state capitols” at noon that day.

“I’d like to come to this, but want to know, does our president want us there?” asked one person on the social media site Gab. “Awaiting instructions.”

In a statement, the U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible for security at the inauguration, said the inauguration was “a foundational element of our democracy” and “the safety and security of all those participating” was “of the utmost importance.”

In a separate statement, Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger, said he had spoken with military officials who were aware of “possible threats posed by would-be terrorists” in the coming days and were working with local and federal law enforcements officers to prevent them.

Even as the throng of hundreds — if not thousands — breached gates, smashed windows and stormed into the Capitol last week, there were also tense standoffs at statehouses in Kansas, Colorado, Oregon and Georgia. On Saturday, that trend seemed to continue as Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said he was told of a “disturbing report of a death threat” received on Friday by the Iowa Democratic Party.

“Threats like this & violence are UNACCEPTABLE,” Mr. Grassley wrote on Twitter.

On Monday, the Michigan Capitol Commission is scheduled to meet to consider banning guns from the building. In April, in a kind of dress rehearsal for the chaos in Washington, a group of gun-toting protesters decrying coronavirus lockdowns rushed the State Capitol in Lansing, not long after Mr. Trump tweeted, “Liberate Michigan.”

Armed with federal warrants, law enforcement officers spent much of the weekend cracking down on people who had stormed the National Capitol, making a series of arrests in states from Iowa to Florida, and filing new charges against some of the more than 80 people who were taken into custody last week by local officers in Washington. Among those charged so far have been a man seen hauling off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern; the leader of the Hawaii chapter of the far-right nationalist group the Proud Boys; and a proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory known for showing up at pro-Trump rallies in a headdress with horns and a spear.

On Saturday, federal prosecutors filed a new complaint against Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr., a Georgia man who was accused of threatening Ms. Pelosi by saying in a text message that he was going to put “a bullet in her noggin on Live TV.” Federal agents said that Mr. Meredith had been staying at a Holiday Inn in Washington and had weapons in his camper-style trailer that included a Glock handgun, a Tavor X95 assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

On Sunday, prosecutors brought charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct against a figure who had first been identified online by civilian sleuths: Eric G. Munchel of Nashville. In a photograph that circulated widely after the attack, Mr. Munchel, 30, was pictured wearing tactical military gear and carrying a handful of plastic restraints known as zip ties.

Prosecutors in Washington also filed a complaint Sunday on similar charges against Larry R. Brock, a retired Air Force officer from Texas, saying he too had been carrying plastic restraints.

The F.B.I. has said that it has received more than 40,000 tips online about the Capitol mob, including photographs and video clips. In an interview with NPR on Sunday, Michael R. Sherwin, the U.S. attorney in Washington, said that the Justice Department was considering charges for “theft of national security information” after some in the mob looted laptops, documents and other items from congressional offices.

Some of those who had been at the Capitol discovered that they had been put on government no-fly lists as they tried on Sunday to make their way home from Washington.

As charges continued to be filed, more participants in the attack were identified around the country, among them business executives and local school board officials. Several police departments — and the New York Fire Department — have said they are investigating members who may have taken part in the assault.

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Reposted from AAM

Dear Museum Community,

The violence and chaos that ensued in our nation’s capital on January 6 was horrifying and reprehensible, and a clear attack on our democracy and society propagated by deliberate deception and misinformation from elected officials. On a day that the United States recorded the most COVID-19 deaths in a single day so far, rioters invaded the U.S. Capitol building in an effort to overturn the unambiguous results of our presidential election resulting in the additional tragic loss of lives.

Museums serve millions of people of all backgrounds and political persuasions in communities across the country, who cast their vote on Election Day. Regardless of whom their ballots favored, our support for the democratic process and the peaceful transition of power must be unequivocal.

There is no doubt that systemic racism and the consistent downplaying of the threat of white supremacy in the United States allowed for the security breach on the Capitol, a museum itself, to take place. The treatment of the rioters, many of whom bore clothing and paraphernalia symbolizing hate, violence, and white supremacy, highlights a pronounced double standard in how peaceful Black and brown protesters fighting for racial justice have been treated.

At this dark junction in our nation’s history, museums must lean into their missions and step up to the challenge ahead of us by fighting against white supremacy through educating our communities, building empathy, combating disinformation, and uplifting the stories and voices that have endured in the margins. As interpreters and educators of history and culture, museums and museum professionals have the power to uphold democracy and democratic norms, call out bigotry and hate, and fight for racial justice.

We thank our members of Congress who returned to the Capitol after rioters were cleared to resume the electoral college count and certify President-Elect Biden’s victory, the members of the media who stayed to accurately document this atrocity, and the museum professionals who are now assessing the impact to the Capitol’s collections.

It could not be clearer that it is time for lawmakers to unify around the certified election of President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris. Only united can we move forward to confront our nation’s many challenges, chief among them addressing systemic racism in the United States and ending the pandemic.

American Alliance of Museums

in partnership with 

American Association for State and Local History

American Institute for Conservation

Association of Academic Museums and Galleries

Association of African American Museums

Association of Art Museum Directors

Association of Children’s Museums

Association of Midwest Museums

Association of Science and Technology Centers

Council of American Jewish Museums

Illinois Association of Museums

Museum Association of Arizona

Museum Association of New York

New England Museum Association

Western Museums Association

Southeastern Museums Conference

The Association of Art Museum Curators

The California Association of Museums

Utah Museums Association

Visitor Studies Association

If you are an AAM Affiliate organization, or a state or regional museum association, and would like to sign onto this statement, please contact AAM Director of Marketing & Communications, Natanya Khashan.

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Reposted from Campus Safety Magazine

Physical threats are increasing in frequency and becoming more unmanageable, putting unprecedented financial, reputational and liability pressures on organizations’ leadership and security teams, according to the “2021 State of Protective Intelligence Report: A Mandate for Proactive Protective Intelligence in the Era of Exponential Physical Security Threats,” a new study commissioned by the Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence.

As physical security operations budgets are expected to increase in 2021, driven and accelerated by COVID-19, the study showcases the collective perspectives of chief security officers, chief legal officers, chief compliance officers and physical security decision-makers — on their physical security operations, what keeps them up at night, challenges and opportunities they foresee in 2021, and the pressing need for physical security modernization through technology.

Business continuity is at the heart of physical security concerns and 69% of security, legal, compliance and physical security executives say their leadership would agree it will be impossible for their company to recover financially and reputation-wise were a fatality to occur as a result of missed physical threats. But the reality is they are already teetering on the brink of inadequately protecting many aspects of their businesses.

Alarmingly, 71% of respondents say in the past year the lack of unified protective intelligence has resulted in missed threats and physical harm to their company’s employees, customers and human assets.

“This study shows that every business leader should be sounding an alarm and looking to protective intelligence to truly transform their ability to proactively see around corners, to identify, assess and act on threats that can have irreparable human and business costs,” says Fred Burton, executive director of the Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence. “We are at a critical inflection point, and security leaders should act judiciously, be emboldened to adopt a proactive protective intelligence strategy and help radically transform physical security — and our world — for the better.”

“We heard resoundingly from physical security decision-makers that technology to advance the effectiveness of physical security and mitigate violent threats is necessary for the future of their company,” says Lukas Quanstrom, CEO of Ontic. “When physical threats go unmanaged, it increases corporate risk, irrevocably impacting business continuity given the potential for deep financial impact. Our research shows that security, legal, compliance and risk leaders unanimously agree the time is now to invest in physical security digital transformation, and Ontic is proud to help pave the way for a new standard in protective intelligence innovation.”

Among the biggest 2021 physical security challenges:

• COVID-19 recovery, including managing permanent remote working and safety protocols (38% agree this will be a challenge)
• Data protection and privacy (36%)
• Reduced security headcount due to the economy (35%)
• Physical security threats to remote workers (34%)
• Threat data management (33%)
• Physical security threats to C-suite and organization leadership (32%)

Other key findings from the survey include:

• Keeping employees safe as they work remotely (43%), identifying potential threats to reduce their company’s liabilities (43%), effectively managing the volume of threat data (43%) and identifying threats to save their organization money (34%) are the top physical security concerns keeping security, legal and compliance executives up at night.
• 71% of legal and compliance leaders rank increased potential for financial losses as a top 3 compliance, risk or regulation issue impacting physical security strategy.
• 39% say COVID-19 has caused them to accelerate their timeline for physical security solutions modernization.
• 84% agree their company would be able to better avoid crises if all members of the physical security team could view threat data in a single system-of-record platform.
• 91% of respondents say — and 54% strongly agree — that physical security needs a technology-driven industry standard for actively identifying, investigating, assessing, monitoring and managing physical security threats.
• A strong majority agree (90%) — and half strongly agree (51%) — that now is the best time to invest in physical security digital transformation, and 84% agree unmanaged physical threats increase risk, can be financially crippling and negatively impact business continuity.

A total of 300 respondents completed the survey, which was conducted between Oct. 13-30. These included chief security officers, chief legal officers, chief compliance officers, general counsels, corporate attorneys and physical security decision-makers at U.S. companies with more than 5,000 employees.

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Reposted from The Art Newspaper

The cycle of museum openings and closings in the US continues to churn amid the pandemic, with five Philadelphia museums announcing today that they will once again welcome visitors this month.

Temporary closures were mandated in Philadelphia on 20 November in response to a rise in coronavirus cases but then lifted by the city for some organisations, including museums, effective today. All five museums plan to resume measures to protect visitors and staff members’ health and safety as they reopen their doors.

The Franklin Institute, a science museum and centre for science education and research, will reopen on Wednesday; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Barnes Foundation and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University will greet visitors starting on Friday. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Artswill reopen on 21 January.

“With the advent of a new year, we are grateful for the opportunity to welcome our visitors once again,” the directors of the museums said in a joint statement. “Despite the continued challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the resilience of the cultural sector shines through and cultural experiences remain essential to the well-being of the human spirit, providing inspiration, enrichment and rejuvenation.”

The statement was also joined by the Eastern State Penitentiary, which operates a historic site examining the crumbling prison's history and plans to reopen sometime in March. The Rodin Museum, overseen by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will reopen later in the spring.

The picture on the East Coast of the US is spotty. Most major New York museums are currently open, with a notable exception being the two Smithsonian museums there. After closures lasting from mid-March to September, Boston museums shut their doors again in mid-December in response to renewed city restrictions while signalling that they were hoping to reopen in January. Washington institutions including the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian’s museums have been closed since late November after some phased reopenings. 

The Baltimore Museum of Art closed on 25 November and plans to reopen on 16 January, and museums in the southeastern US mostly remain open. The picture varies significantly elsewhere across the country, with many institutions having reopened but Chicago museums, for example, having closed again in November in response to state restrictions and a majority of California museums closed under government mandates.

US museums are facing overwhelming financial challenges because of the pandemic, having lost revenue from admissions and retail sales as well as facilities rentals and on-site fundraising events. Nearly all are struggling to find a way forward.

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Reposted from The Boston Globe

So what, exactly, are we in for in 2021? Think ahead to, say, the fall, and imagine heading back to the office. The morning train feels a little crowded for comfort but the sidewalks lack their old bustle, and your favorite lunch spot is long gone.

Most of your pals are working from home today — in houses weirdly quiet since the kids are back in school — so lunch out isn’t the same anyway.

After a one-on-one with the boss and some meetings via video, you head home about 1:30, pick up the kids, and get back on the laptop. After work, you go for a run. Your old gym didn’t survive the shutdown, either. Dinner is takeout from a neighborhood joint, then maybe some shopping: a virtual Target run at 10 p.m.

Welcome to life in 2021 — one version of it, anyway. After the big pile of misery that was 2020, the coming year has to be better for most of us. Right?

It sure should. But it will likely come in fits, with false starts and setbacks that may feel like 2020 all over again, long periods of muddling along broken by sudden bursts of new activity. Think Red Sox at Fenway, dinner out on a summer night, dropping off the kid on that first day of school — at an actual school. It will probably be December before we can all safely look back and exhale, just in time to ring out another year and genuinely look forward to the new.

That’s roughly the picture that emerges from more than 15 experts from various avenues of business and civic life in Boston whom the Globe interviewed about how they see the next 12 months unfolding.

To a person, they hold a fundamentally hopeful outlook for our region, but acknowledge there are huge unknowns. The effectiveness of vaccines, the appeal of cities as hubs for both commerce and culture, the prospect of more aid from Washington — all these and other variables could result in wild, abrupt swings in conditions and mood.

And 2021 will look very different for different people. Indeed, the gaps between the rich and poor will likely grow even wider. And countless decisions we all make — where to live, how to commute, whether to close a struggling restaurant — will collectively shape the fabric of Greater Boston, and its recovery.

And after the year we’ve just had, even hazarding a guess could be a fool’s game.

“Anybody who tells you they know how 2021 will go is crazy,” said veteran local developer Kirk Sykes, a former board chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. “There are just so many variables.”

January: Dark times, as COVID-19 cases and deaths surge, and business restrictions stay in place. While new vaccines and a new president signal hope ahead, the toll of the pandemic is inescapable.

Restaurants and retailers that hung on for the holidays shut their doors, some forever. Logan Airport is ghostly. A few big-name companies dump their leases on downtown offices. The sidewalks are empty.

“I hate to say it,” said restaurant industry consultant Ed Doyle, “but things are going to get worse before they get better.”

February: Signs of life, as the post-holiday COVID surge ebbs and vaccine distribution ramps up, despite some hiccups.

Gyms and museums reopen and restaurants resume more in-person dining. College kids come back to the streets of Allston and Cambridge. Some school districts plan a post-Presidents Day return to in-person learning, and parents rejoice. Traffic on the highways, for once, is seen as a good thing.

But for workers who’ve long since lost jobs, a new start is still a mirage, likely months in the future. Yes, the stimulus bill passed by Congress at year’s end is helping, but the expanded unemployment benefits will lapse soon. Spring (and more stimulus money) can’t come soon enough.

March: The months are a blur, but March marks one year since everything changed. And while we’re impatient to get back to normal, the machinery of daily life isn’t ready yet. MBTA cuts make it hard for some to get to work. Schools are probably still doing remote learning at least some of the time. Grocery store employees, delivery drivers, hospital janitors, and others still going into work have to dig deeper for child care and transportation.

“All the things that you need to get back to work, it’s on [essential workers’] backs with little to no support,” said Phyllis Barajas, chief executive of Conexión, a mentoring and advancement program for Hispanic and Latino business leaders. “Except for their drive to take care of their family, keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.”

April: Hope springs eternal, but it arrives with the warm weather carrying a mixed bag. The economic divide laid bare by the pandemic threatens to widen. Home prices keep surging, thanks to low interest rates and a still-strong economy for white-collar workers. But unemployed hospitality workers, Uber drivers, and others at the mercy of the service economy find themselves pushed from their homes as evictions surge.

And the binding rituals of a Boston spring — like the Marathon — are missing again this year.

This is also supposed to be the time the vaccines roll out to the general public. But any setback has people on edge, said venture capitalist David Frankel of Founder Collective, and suddenly the promise of spring appears to be fading.

”You could easily see somewhere a real psychological shift,” he said. A slower-than-expected return to normalcy “could wipe out the good will that I think will accrue as you see more people vaccinated.”

May: Finally, a sign: The Red Sox, the season delayed a few weeks, hold Opening Day at Fenway Park — with fans, though at reduced capacity. College graduation ceremonies — outdoors, of course — help to fill hotels desperate for visitors. Warmer temperatures and longer evenings bring a resurgence in outdoor dining. Suddenly it’s hard to get a table.

There’s also more work for people, at both ends of the job ladder. Big drugmakers announce plans for new buildings, while laid-off wait staff and hotel workers take up retraining opportunities to become electricians and HVAC technicians. Technical schools see a surge in applications.

“That part of the workforce has remained robust,” said Aisha Francis, chief executive of Ben Franklin Institute of Technology. “We need to figure out how to train people faster.”

June: Tourist sighting in the North End! As travel restrictions ease, the streets of downtown Boston are dotted with visitors, meandering along the Freedom Trail and queueing for the whale watch boats. Hotels begin to fill, and the stores and bars around Faneuil Hall that managed to survive celebrate the end of a long, cold winter.

For us locals, summer day camps fill fast, and if you thought it was hard to rent a house on the Cape last summer, well, good luck this year. With a year under their belt to plan, public spaces like Boston Common and the Lawn on D spring back to life with vibrant — though still socially distanced — events and concerts.

“It will be a time of great urban celebration,” said Carlo Ratti, professor of urban technologies and planning at MIT.

July: While the streets are livelier, the office towers of downtown Boston and Kendall Square remain quiet; some companies commit to remote work indefinitely, a few have moved to the suburbs. Some have also downsized, retooling their smaller offices to be less the center of company life, and more the occasional hangout.

“It’s going to be collaborative space, with collaborative tech. Screens, new systems for hybrid meetings,” said Arlyn Vogelmann, a principal at design firm Gensler Boston. “People won’t just come in and sit at a desk all day.”

August: One slice of Boston’s economy is growing fast: Life sciences. The same technology that quickly created vaccines for COVID-19 is now tackling a host of difficult diseases, and it’s all happening here.

“There are going to be breathtaking things that will happen in science this year,” said Tim Ritchie, president of the Museum of Science. “And Boston is the life science capital of the world.”

That’s apparent along Fort Point Channel, where politicians and pharmaceutical executives gather to celebrate the start of construction of a tower once planned as the world headquarters for General Electric. Instead, it will be home to a drug company, one of dozens of life science groundbreakings around Boston this year. As the ceremonial dirt flies, everyone wears a mask.

September: A duck boat parade celebrating front line workers on Labor Day is nixed. Too risky. But the vaccine is now well into general distribution, and for many people, this is the month life finally starts to feel normal again.

Most crucially, schools are back. There are masks and social distancing and COVID testing for teachers and students alike. But public schools across Greater Boston at last return to in-person classes. But there is so much catching up to do, with districts struggling to resolve the huge disparities exposed, and deepened, by kids who’ve missed so much regular school.

“I expect different states and even different communities to do this at different paces,” said Will Austin, chief executive of the nonprofit Boston Schools Fund. “Because as much as we want to say this stuff is scientific, a lot of it is political.”

With kids in school, more parents are back at work in person, part of a broader return-to-the-office that picks up speed in the fall. It’s not the typical post-Labor-Day rush, but downtown feels the busiest it has been in 18 months, with new restaurants and bars starting to open. Jobs come back too, though the biggest help-wanted ads come from Amazon, gearing up for an online-shopping season to dwarf this past year’s. Some new habits die hard.

October: Life back at the office isn’t quite the same. Many white-collar workers are on hybrid schedules, working from home one or two days a week. No one’s jetting in from Chicago for a meeting that can happen on Zoom. Conventions? Maybe next year. So parts of the economy remain down, particularly the hard-hit hospitality sector and downtown restaurants that relied on expense account business dinners.

But even in travel, there’s hope, as a few of the city’s signature events — maybe the Marathon, or the Head of the Charles — finally get back on track.

“The vaccine rollout will have been a success if those events happen,” said Carlos Aramayo, president of hospitality-workers union Unite Here Local 26. “And if those events happen, that’s great for our members, because that means a lot of other things are going to be happening.”

November: Dare we say, life in Boston is starting to feel somewhat . . . normal? The Celtics and Bruins fill TD Garden again. Concert venues come back on line and a wave of pop-up stores open downtown. Logan Airport bustles at Thanksgiving. No one’s skipping the holidays this year.

By now, some are even able to look back on the pandemic as a missed opportunity, a squandered chance to reset how Boston functions, for the better. There was no big rethinking how we create affordable housing, or use public space, no mass buildout of bus lanes in the quiet, traffic-free months of the pandemic.

“We never made any meaningful changes that would change behavior, and the way people get around the city,” said Stacy Thompson, executive director of transit advocacy group Livable Streets Alliance. “Because of that, the unevenness of our system feels profound.”

Still, the vaccine has largely done its job. Along with our annual flu shot, we all get a COVID booster, and go about our lives. After the last 18 months, that feels like a win.

December: We’re already looking ahead to next year. If 2020 was a mess, and 2021 was a stop-and-start recovery, we all think 2022 is when things get moving again for real.

With more people coming in to work, holiday parties feel like a just reward. There’s some of the usual Christmas bustle at hotels and event businesses. New restaurants experiment with different formats — though takeout and outdoor seating are here to stay. Neighborhood joints thrive.

While there’s so much left to rebuild — and still 200,000 fewer jobs than before the pandemic — hiring is picking up speed, and finally, COVID feels like a thing of the past. After nearly two years of trying to stay afloat, companies and people are looking forward again. Indeed, ideas we haven’t even thought of yet are starting to bloom.

“On the other side of this are some amazing opportunities,” said Doyle, the restaurant consultant. “This is a forest fire. Everything is going to burn down. And out of those ashes are going to come some new sprouts that could never have seen the light of day.”

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