On July 18 I posted an article regarding the use of security cameras in public places and whether this would impact on museums. I have just received a reply from legal counsel at the Privacy Commissioner's office which I thought would be of interest to subscribers as a follow-up to my previous posting. I have also attached my original email to the Privacy Commissioner's office which you might want to add to the posting.
David Tremain Conservator, Preventive Conservation Services Canadian Conservation Institute (613) 998-3721 Fax: (613) 998-3721 david_tremain@pch.gc.ca
David Tremain 07/18/2001 11:26 AM
To: info@privcom.gc.ca Subject:
Security cameras
Dear Mr Radwanski,
At the Canadian Conservation Institute I am often involved with providing museums and other cultural institutions with advice on physical security as it relates to these institutions. I was interested to read both the article in yesterday's 'Ottawa Citizen' ("Security cameras ruled illegal", Jen Ross) and your letter in today's paper ("Robbers can't order cameras off"), refuting the incorrect assumptions made in Jen Ross's article. While these have to some extent been clarified, I am concerned that they may still raise issues for museum security, and I would be grateful if you could clarify them for me, and for other museum professionals who may have read this same article.
My first question is, are museums (and other cultural institutions, i.e. libraries, archives, art galleries) affected by the PIPED Act? If so, how? Secondly, if they are federally-run institutions, are they covered under this act, as could be inferred from your statement "until 2004, it applies only to federal works, undertakings or businesses - primarily banks, telecommunications, broadcasting and transportation companies". While you state that these are the primary institutions covered, you do not appear to rule out museums. Nor is it clear from your statement "security surveillance on private premises by a private organization" if privately run museums are covered, or whether "surveillance in public places by a private commercial organization" includes private security companies contracted by museums to carry out monitoring of CCTV or other such activities.
I'm sure you will appreciate that museums and other cultural institutions often rely on closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) to monitor the public in exhibition areas, museum shops,and parts of buildings or galleries which may not have enough security staff to carry out regular patrols. In many cases, these cameras have led to the apprehension of criminals who have stolen, or have attempted to steal, or who have vandalised, works of art, which, had there not been any CCTV would have got away scot-free. If museums are faced with a situation where the public begins making requests to have the CCTV cameras switched off, then this will undoubtedly compromise security. I am unaware of whether museums post signs, as you suggest in your letter, warning of security cameras in operation, and cannot recall seeing such signs on my periodic visits to museums and galleries. I suspect most prefer not to draw attention to the fact. Indeed, many security cameras are discreetly hidden from the public.
I look forward to your comments on this issue, and would be grateful if I could then make these comments available to the museum community.
Thank you, David Tremain Conservator, Preventive Conservation Services Canadian Conservation Institute 1030 Innes Road Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0M5
(613) 998-3721 Fax: (613) 998-4721 david_tremain@pch.gc.ca
"Ann Goldsmith" agoldsmith@privcom.gc.ca To: David Tremain/HullOttawa/PCH/CA@PCH Subject:
security cameras
August 21, 2001
Dear Mr. Tremain:
Your letter to Mr. Radwanski concerning security cameras in cultural institutions has been referred to me for reply.
As you may be aware, the Privacy Commissioner is an ombudsman under the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPED Act). One of the Commissioner's mandated responsibilities under the legislation is to resolve complaints in a fair and unbiased manner. In order to carry out this oversight role effectively, the Commissioner is not in a position to provide what might be called advance rulings. However, we do attempt to respond to inquiries in as helpful a manner as possible.
Your first question asked whether museums (and other cultural institutions such as libraries, art galleries, archives) are affected by the PIPED Act. The PIPED Act applies to organizations that collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities. It does not apply to organizations that are subject to the federal Privacy Act or to provincial or territorial governments or their agents. The National Arts Centre, the National Gallery of Canada, the National Archives, the National Library as well as other federal museums such as the Museum of Civilization are all subject to the federal Privacy Act. There will be many such institutions that are subject to provincial privacy laws. In those cases where a museum, or other cultural institution, is not covered by any of that legislation and engages in a commercial activity, then it will be subject to the PIPED Act. There may be gift shops attached to museums that are engaged in a commercial activity.
Your second question deals with the timing of application of the PIPED Act. If indeed the PIPED Act were to apply to such an organization, the organization would have to ascertain whether or not it is considered to be "a federal work, undertaking or business". While this seems unlikely, except perhaps in the territories where private sector organizations are considered to be federal works, it would mean that the legislation applies as of January 1, 2001. If the organization is not a federal work, undertaking or business then the legislation will apply as of January 1, 2004. The federal government may also exempt organizations or activities in provinces that have their own privacy laws that are deemed to be substantially similar to the federal law. As of January 1, 2004, there will be some form of legislation covering the collection, use or disclosure of personal information by all organizations engaged in commercial activity.
You also asked for general comments regarding the issue of video surveillance. In his letter to the Editor of The Citizen, Mr. Radwanski was clear that the PIPED Act does not permit individuals to ask that surveillance cameras be turned off prior to committing a crime. He outlined three situations with regard to the issue of video surveillance: surveillance on private premises by a private organization, surveillance in public places by a private commercial organization and surveillance in public places by public authorities. The issues and the requirements will vary according to the situation presented. In the case of private premises, a sign that clearly indicates the existence of security cameras would allow individuals to give implied consent as they enter the premises. Such signs may also serve to deter crime in the first place.
Privacy commissioners from all countries are grappling with the implications that unrestricted video surveillance poses for privacy in our society today. Organizations and governments need to evaluate the potential risks that this technology raises, to ensure that such surveillance is indeed necessary and to establish strict controls for its use.
This is clearly an issue that the office of the Privacy Commissioner will be studying in the coming months. As Mr. Radwanski also said in his letter to the Editor, he is currently investigating a complaint under the Privacy Act about the use of surveillance cameras by a public authority in a public place. This finding may also be useful to the museum community.
I am sorry that I cannot be more definitive about this issue but hope that this information will be useful to you.
Yours sincerely, Ann Goldsmith Legal Counsel
The great art world swindler
Art dealers all over the world trusted Michel Cohen. Then early this year he and his family vanished with £60 million in cash and pictures. Philip Delves Broughton takes up the story MICHEL COHEN was a rare thing in the art world, a man without enemies. With his two- day-old stubble, polo shirts and floppy dark hair, he was a caricature of Mediterranean ease, who enjoyed teasing his fellow dealers for being so lock-jawed. Where are they now? Paul Gray loaned Cohen the Picasso, which was never returned If he wanted to borrow a Picasso to show to a client, it was lent, no questions asked. If he needed a loan to buy a painting, it was given. Like the City before the Big Bang, the art world runs on trust within a very small circle. An arcane system of good faith and a desire for secrecy overrides the need for lawyers and fussy documentation.
Cohen had charm, ambition and efficiency, and was trusted absolutely. But now, it appears, he abused that trust to pull off one of the greatest swindles the art world has ever seen, borrowing over £60 million in cash and paintings to pay off debts accrued by trading stock options, then fleeing the United States when his scheme collapsed. Among those hit are some of the biggest names in the art trade, such as Sotheby's, Chicago's blue-chip Richard Gray Gallery and major dealers in France and Switzerland.
Rumours of Cohen's whereabouts range from a kibbutz in Israel to a plastic surgeon's clinic in Costa Rica. His homes in Malibu and Manhattan lie empty, and the FBI's art crimes division has so far found little more than a vapour trail of stale cologne.
"It's not only betrayal by a friend, it's outright thievery," says Paul Kantor, the grand old man of the Californian art scene. Kantor, now in his 80s, used to have lunch with Cohen three times a week at Morton's steak house in Los Angeles, when Cohen would bring transparencies and suggest deals.
At one of their last meetings, Kantor says he agreed to pay Cohen $6 m (£4.2 m) for three Picassos. He never saw the paintings and is now wondering whether it is worth pursuing his money through the courts. "The banks were calling him and all he had to do was declare bankruptcy and he would have been free. But he wanted to hold on to a major sum of money," he says.
As well as exposing the nod-and-a-wink trading practices of the art world, Cohen's alleged swindle also says much about the hyperventilating greed that afflicted Americans as their stock markets soared in the late 1990s. Like millions of others, Cohen, 47, could not resist the prospect of seeing his money double and triple in stocks. He became hooked on margin trading, a high-risk means of borrowing money to buy stocks in the hope that they will go up.
Once the preserve of chain-smoking professionals on Wall Street, margin trading became an amateur passion for people such as Cohen. But then the bubble burst. Martin Muller, a San Francisco dealer who spoke to Cohen almost daily for many years, says he can remember when Cohen began to change. It was March last year, the month the great technology-fuelled stock markets began to collapse, and the two men met for lunch in Miami.
Before then, says Muller, Cohen was "unpretentious, charismatic, friendly with a good sense of humour. He was also intelligent and always handled affairs in a very businesslike way. That is how he gained everyone's trust, based on his charisma."
At lunch in Miami, however, Muller says he "found him changed. He was anxious, he was colder. He was spaced out." Cohen left the table as many as 15 times to make calls on his mobile phone, and seemed fraught and distracted. The two men were discussing a deal in which Cohen wanted $100 m (£70 m) to buy a number of paintings for which he said he already had clients. In the end, Muller lent him $4 m (£2.8 m) to buy a Picasso. The money, Cohen promised, would be repaid in July.
"I definitely had some serious reservations," says Muller, "regretfully not enough. But then, his excellent track record spoke in his favour. It has been an immensely expensive mistake of mine." Muller has not had his loan repaid and is now taking legal advice.
In its lawsuit against Cohen, Sotheby's alleges he borrowed a total of $8.4 m (£5.9 m) during the spring of 2000 to enable him to buy four works: two Picassos, Femme dans l'atelier and Femme dans un fauteuil; and two Chagalls, La Belle Rousse and La Neige.
Having done around $50 m (£35 m) of business with Cohen over the years, Sotheby's trusted him. Cohen said he had buyers ready to pay over $10 m for the four paintings and that he would repay Sotheby's with interest and a percentage of the profit. It was an attractive deal to the auction house, still reeling from its price-fixing troubles.
It remains unclear whether Cohen ever bought or resold the works in question. Some believe he simply used the cash to pay his margin debts. "Sotheby's has been in business 250 years and should know every trick in the book," says Kantor, who believes Cohen did buy the art, "but they allowed him to walk away with the paintings which were their security." On January 23 this year, Sotheby's filed suit against Cohen in California and New York, the locations of his two galleries, alleging massive fraud. A few days later, he and his wife Ulrike, and their two young children, Noah and Chloe, were gone.
Picasso's 'Nu Accroupi': Cohen walked off with her, later sending the Richard Gray Gallery a dud $2.1 million cheque Cohen's American adventure began in Oakland, California, where he arrived from Paris in 1981. He began selling prints, but his energy and formidable memory won him friends among the more serious West Coast dealers. To his Californian friends, he was Michael. He readopted the French Michel for snob value when he came to New York in 1993.
Cohen brought the spark of a street vendor to the then arthritic art world. Happy to throw a million-dollar painting in the back of his convertible and drive it to a client, he was not awed by the commodity he now dealt in.
After establishing his reputation in California, he reached the big time when he moved to New York to be with his British girlfriend, Tanya Bonakdur. He was among the first Americans to exhibit works by Damien Hirst, who remembers him fondly.
"Michel used to have, you know, one of those little boxes," Hirst told New York magazine, referring to a pocket computer which reported share prices, "stocks and shares and things. He was absurd. While we were having breakfast in a cafe he lost £100,000. Tanya got really upset." Cohen split up from Bonakdur in 1995, but funded a contemporary gallery for her.
Two years later, Cohen scored the biggest art deal of his life, joining forces with a Los Angeles property developer to buy 80 works by Marc Chagall from the artist's estate. The deal enabled him to open a gallery in Malibu while retaining his space on Madison Avenue. He and his new wife, Ulrike, a German art dealer who specialised in Latin American works, built a magnificent house on Point Dune, a hugely expensive area close to Malibu.
Finally, Cohen was getting a taste of the life he had always coveted: a new Mercedes every few months, chartered planes for weekend trips to Martha's Vineyard and Palm Beach, horses, nannies, private yoga instructors. His friends blame his wife for not restraining him. "She was definitely not slowing him down from a very fast lifestyle," says Muller. "Had he remained honest, he would have done extremely well for himself. But he wanted to be a billionaire. Being a multi-millionaire was not good enough for him."
Others who visited Cohen before he fled say that, rather than supporting him, Ulrike ratcheted up the tension, blaming him for not making enough and then squandering what they had. By the end, several dealers say, Cohen was offering paintings for less than he had them bought them for, simply to fend off his creditors. The fancy stitching of his life had completely frayed.
Some in the art world are saying that Cohen's swindle should act as a warning to dealers to change their act. But most say that his behaviour was an aberration, not a reason to overhaul the business.
"The initial instinct of dealers in any other business is to bring in the suits," says Paul Gray, the co-owner of the Richard Gray Gallery, which was badly burned by Cohen. "In the art world, one does not suspect someone before they have done anything. That is the genteel way of doing things."
Gray, however, is one of the few to have filed suit against Cohen and his wife, who co- signed most of his loans. Many of the smaller dealers who lost out have been reluctant to do the same. Some are embarrassed that they were duped. Others do not rate their chances of recovering their losses through the courts. A few are believed to be frightened of the exposure.
According to Gray's suit, Cohen borrowed a Picasso, Nu accroupi, last December saying he wanted to show it to a client. He never returned it. A few weeks later he wrote a cheque to the gallery for $2.1 m (£1.48 m) but then stopped payment on it. The painting has since found its way, via two sellers, to the house of a Californian computer mogul who is unlikely to have to give it up. Gray's insurance company is understood to be covering the loss.
"I've seen people who turned bad and ended up owning relatively small amounts of money to five to 10 people, but nothing like this," says Gray. "Every time there's a downturn, there are a few dealers who suffer. But this is grander than anything else."
The FBI has revealed little about its investigation and many are muttering that it has a proletarian prejudice against expending effort on the losses of art dealers. While most of the paintings he used to get his loans have resurfaced, in galleries and with private collectors, Cohen's own whereabouts remain a mystery, as does the amount of money he made off with.
And in the art world, the system of trust continues. "Cohen is one little chink in the armour," says Kantor. "He hasn't changed anything." Despite his losses, Gray agrees: "The art world should be applauded for its gentlemanly ways." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Stolen Painting Returns To Albuquerque
An art treasure stolen from the Albuquerque Museum in 1989 is back home. Thursday the City unveiled the Oscar Berninghaus work called "Pueblo Indian Woman Of Taos". It was recovered in January when an elderly man in Cleveland tried to sell it to an art dealer. The elderly man says he bought it at a flea-market. The painting, valued at more than 500-thousand dollars, has been restored and is now on display. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/