The British Museum was partially closed over the weekend after an ex-employee allegedly shut down its security and IT systems.
According to a public statement from a museum spokesperson, the trespasser was an IT contractor fired earlier this month. He returned on Thursday to breach the museum’s systems, the institution said, and was arrested by Metropolitan police that same day. He has since been released on bail “pending further enquiries,” per authorities.
The security breached caused the museum to temporarily close three special of its exhibitions, including a show of Picasso prints. As a result, the museum was forced to issue refunds to ticket holders.
The British Museum was the most popular tourist attraction in the United Kingdom in 2023, with 5.8 million visitors, nearly a 50 percent increase from the prior year. Its collection includes some of the world’s most prized antiquities, including the Rosetta Stone and the contested Parthenon Marbles. However, the Central London institution faced a security scandal in 2023 after reports emerged that a former senior curator had stolen some 2,000 objects from its collection over 30 years.
In addition to the early resignation of museum director Hartwig Fischer, the revelation triggered a reckoning for the institution over its operations and facilities, given that management was alerted to the theft in 2021. Following an independent review of the incident, the museum concluded that it had broken a UK law that requires museums and libraries “to meet basic standards of preservation, access, and professional care.” The law also states that collections should be “in the care of suitably qualified staff.”
The review also gave the museum given 36 recommendations for the museum’s security, governance, and record-keeping operations. Museum leadership has also announced plans for a comprehensive documentation of the museum’s collection in five years, at a cost of $12.1 million. Meanwhile, the museum has self-reported the retrieval of some 600 objects reported missing or stolen from its collection.
Many have since raised questions about the British Museum’s security system. Nigerian officials, for example, renewed their calls for the repatriation of Benin Bronzes, a group of artifacts looted from the West African kingdom of Benin by British forces in 1897, claiming that the museum would not be best fit for caring for them.
