Rethinking security: Lessons from the Louvre incident

In this ISJ exclusive, Digital Content Editor, Eve Goode speaks with David Ly, Founder and CEO of Iveda about the Louvre robbery.

Can you tell me about the Louvre incident that happened on the 19th of October 2025 and how a robbery like this could take place in one of the most secure museums in the world?

In my personal opinion, I’ve always looked at any museum of that scale and stature, whether that be in the US or Europe and just assume that it is completely secure.

Most companies operate on complacency and what I mean by that is that the organisations are thinking “nothing has happened to us yet, so we can leave it until later to sort.”

However, this is where the issue lies.

If the right security procedures are not put into place before an event has occurred, it leaves weaknesses in the overall security system, leaving gaps for security threats to make their way in.

The robbery that happened at the Louvre in Paris was extremely unfortunate and I don’t want to point the finger of blame at anyone as really; it is nobody’s fault.

Someone didn’t have the intention of failing but we are humans and humans make mistakes.

I truly believe the real cause of the robbery was down to complacency.

What type of security systems does museums benefit from and why?

At standard, museums benefit from video security and CCTV.

With traditional surveillance, we rely on the systems to record an incident if something were to happen and we review this after the event has occurred.

Unfortunately, this procedure of checking after the event is still the norm around the world unless you are a mission critical operation that is on high alert everyday by operational standards.

I call this type of technology ‘Radioshack Technology’ as a lot of companies have simple and basic alarm systems to notify security teams in case of an emergency such as an open door or window in restricted areas.

However, these technologies still require human intervention in order to be effective.

Once companies start integrating smart technologies such as high-definition video cameras, they sometimes think this enough to keep them protected but if the security team or practitioner is not around to operate the system it can become stagnant.

Can you tell me about the idea of ‘rip and replace’ and why new equipment doesn’t always need to be installed to better security?

Rip and replace is when you have old security systems and you think they need to be completely replaced by something new and better.

When it comes to CCTV, IP cameras and the video surveillance systems of today, nothing has changed that much.

I have been in the industry for 23 years and if we go back to the year 2000, the only thing that has changed or improved is the camera system optics, the video quality and the resolution.

We now have the recording being stored as data on a hard drive or in the cloud as opposed to it being stored on video tapes.

This proves that it doesn’t matter what you do as you’re still dealing with the same functional concept.

So what needs to be done to make the systems better?

1. Intelligence
2. Action
3. Proactive solutions rather than reactive

In 2025, everyone is always talking about AI and this is where my expertise come in because I have seen it evolving since 2007.

Humans are monitoring on our customer behalf and at Iveda, we were the company that actually had staff watching cameras and typing reports included cut and paste images. We then used this to send our customers daily reports.

Due to our experience of monitoring surveillance this way, we can be the first to say that humans cannot detect everything as we cannot be there at all times, even when we think we can.

We use human experiences to leverage artificial intelligence or machine learning to improve our work.

AI is leveraged in many ways but our expertise at Iveda are on the video side of the spectrum.

Many people claim that AI can do anything, but you have to know how to leverage it, use it, build it and model it.

We can take an old system and apply artificial intelligence to look through the camera as a human would, except now the AI we install is going to catch an alert based on the objectives you have installed or instructed it to flag up.

The benefit of using AI is that it never needs to sleep or have a break, so it is working 24/7 which means there is never a time where the surveillance in unmonitored.

AI is also a lot more accurate than a human and its very proactive.

In today’s world there is no need for rip and replace as we can bring something in and make it work.

What difference does AI make in surveillance cameras and do you think the outcome of the Louvre robbery could’ve ended differently had this been integrated into their surveillance systems?

100%.

If there was a true AI video platform in place with the existing camera infrastructure, I believe it could have been prevented.

After the robbery took place, I Googled and read many articles so that I could understand what exactly happened. So, all the facts that I am discussing here is from public information.

I’m sure the museum has a number of cameras installed already, but if there was an AI camera at street level pointing at the wall where the thieves entered, it could have immediately flagged up that there were individuals loitering well as a vehicle in a restricted area.

I am confident that if AI configuration was used, the robbery could have been prevented as the museum could have set up tailored parameters to ensure the perimeter was completely secured.

Due to there being an emotional response to the robbery, this is what has caused a big rethink among many organisations’ security teams.  This robbery has caused a public call to action to allow people and organisations to think twice about lacking on security.

At Iveda, we speak about this every day, some companies are resistant to change or upgrade their systems due to expense, however if they don’t have the best security infrastructure in place, how can they be sure their organisation is ever completely safe against outsider threats.

Can you tell me about a time when AI prevented real-life incidents that traditional cameras would have only recorded?

I want to discuss something that everyone can relate to and it’s not actually about crime or any criminal activity.

Here in the states, we were monitoring a property and through video surveillance it prevented a potential fire hazard.

The event took place in the waste disposal part of a shopping mall. As you know, a lot of people do illegal dumping in these areas where they leave residential waste such as mattresses and cardboard.

There isn’t any smoke detectors or any staff in this area of the mall but there were vagrants that caused a fire that was large enough that it could have caught an awning and nearby cars.

The security cameras that were installed had AI integrated into the systems to detect illegal parking around the waste storage entrances rather than to detect fire. The AI detected the smoke before there was even a fire and the security were able to put out the flame before it caused a lot of damage.

Humans wouldn’t have been able to pick up the small amount of smoke that the camera was able to find, therefore proving the operational efficiency of the AI cameras.         

What can other institutions take away from the Louvre incident and what steps should they begin to take to make their buildings more secure?

I think people are taking the Louvre incident as proof that anything can happen to anyone.

It’s made people and businesses think twice about their security systems and the considerations they need to take as added precaution.

I think people should begin to look at incorporating AI into their surveillance systems as they can tailor actions to detect alerts straight away rather than relying on humans to notice things and alert the right people.

This unfortunate event has encouraged organisations to become more proactive in order to stay protect