Home Office plans art theft database

The Home Office is looking into plans to develop a central database of stolen works of art to help police and the art trade track and recover lost treasures.

Existing systems run by police and private sector firms offer partial services but the new system would create a single comprehensive source of information about art theft.

An independent review team funded by the Home Office is looking into two options, Minister Caroline Flint told the Commons' Culture Committee this week.

The service will either be run by not-for-profit organisation the Council for the Prevention of Art Theft or will expand the existing database run by the Metropolitan Police Art and Antiques Unit.

'There are still a lot of issues to be resolved but we are keen to move forward and get the database up and running as soon as possible,' said Steve Wilks, head of the Home Office burglary unit.

Conservative MP Michael Fabricant, who sits on the Culture Committee, told Computing that the art world feels and international database featuring photographs of stolen items is essential.

'Its very existence would be a huge deterrent to thieves because it would make disposal of stolen goods much more difficult,' he said.

The plan has been under consideration since 2001 when private company the Art Loss Register (ALR) proposed police information be included in their database and made available to the art trade over the internet.

The ALR database holds information on 140,000 stolen items including silver, furniture, jewellery, paintings and guns, but due to confusion around confidentiality issues it largely relies on data provided by insurers and therefore holds little data on lower-value pieces that were not insured.