Individuals and art institutions can now easily find stolen artwork from their phone. On April 10, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a version based on an application from the United States Stolen Art National File (NSAF), its database of stolen works of art and objects of cultural significance.
The NSAF app was originally designed for law enforcement and art industry workers, but anyone in the world can use it to check the legal status of cultural property by a few clicks and swipes.
“One of the biggest evolutions of the NSAF has been to make it accessible to the public,” said Colleen Childers of the FBI’s Crime Art Program in A declaration. “Now with the new mobile upgrade we’ve been through, we want to keep pushing to make it a more user-friendly platform.”
The app offers search and filter functions that categorize art by description, location, and genre, as well as sharing capabilities to help spread the word and submit tips directly to the FBI. The application is free to download and use.
The FBI’s NSAF app isn’t the first time the public’s cellphones have been supplemented to search for stolen artwork. In 2014 the Italian Carabinieri Art Crimes Squad released the first-ever smartphone app to gain public support in the fight against cultural heritage crime. And in 2021, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) launched the ID-Art appa tool that allows broader access to the organization’s database of stolen works of art while simultaneously flagging and recording at-risk cultural heritage sites and objects.
