Intelligent Management of Processes, Ethics and Technology for Urban Safety

Project Information

IMPETUS

Grant agreement ID: 883286

DOI

10.3030/883286

Project closed

EC signature date 21 April 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 28 February 2023

Funded under

• Secure societies - Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens

Total cost

€ 9 073 573,80

EU contribution

€ 7 990 275,00

Coordinated by

SINTEF AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - IMPETUS (Intelligent Management of Processes, Ethics and Technology for Urban Safety)

Reporting period: 2021-11-01 to 2023-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

IMPETUS aims to enhance the resilience of cities in the face of security threats in public spaces. It will provide city authorities with new means to address security issues in public spaces using data gathered from a city-wide lattice of cameras, environmental sensors and interconnected AI systems that control key infrastructures within a Smart City. IMPETUS will help protect citizens against unethical use of personal data and will facilitate threat detection by assisting with physical and cyber security management.

IMPETUS addresses three complementary but overlapping areas:
- Technologies: use the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data analysis to integrate and develop tools and processes allowing cities to manage both physical and cyber security
- Ethics: ensure Smart City capabilities are developed for the benefit of its citizens and to balance potentially conflicting needs to collect, transform and share large amounts of data in accordance with data privacy
- Processes: delivering a multi-tenant solution fully aligned with the cognitive processes, deployment guidelines and operational needs that support decision making of multiple city stakeholders

The project built on tested technologies but enhanced and combined them in a coherent and user-centred solution that goes beyond state-of-the-art.

The consortium consisted of 17 partners from 11 European Union members and associated countries. It brought together five research institutions, seven specialist industrial and SME companies, three NGOs and two local municipalities. Live on-street exercises were held in the cities of Oslo, Norway and Padova, Italy. The consortium was complemented by COSSEC (Community of Safe and Secure Cities) - a group of end-users and other stakeholders who provided feedback and input on IMPETUS solutions.

The project accomplished its main objectives, i.e. to experiment with security technologies for the smart city and demonstrate their potential for public safety, while producing knowledge on implementation risks for such technology and providing concrete guidance on how to manage them.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

From investigations of the local context of partner cities and of needs for public safety solutions, a list of requirements for public safety solutions was produced to guide project developments.

Different types of technical results address the requirements:
- Public safety tools providing specific capabilities for the management of public safety, providing support for: (a) detecting emergencies, (b) identifying emerging threats, (c) emergency management, (d) cyber protection, and (e) operational efficiency.
- A platform integrating the tools in terms of: (a) Providing access through a unified interface targeted at specific security actors (especially Security Operations Center operators), and (b) Making it possible for some tools to work together and exchange data.
- Practitioners' Guides offering practical advice on: (a) operational change; (b) ethical, legal and data privacy concerns; (c) cybersecurity risks. These Practitioners Guides will be useful beyond the end of the project for all stakeholders involved in public safety, but will be particularly useful for adopters of IMPETUS results.

In addition, general "lessons learned" were shared with other projects, first adopters and policy makers, generated especially through interactions with end-users and other stakeholders.

Throughout the second year of the project, 3 sets of increasingly realistic and complex validation exercises were conducted in the two partner cities, following the same underlying scenario involving a terrorist attack during a protest in a public space. The exercises allowed for the maturation of the technical results between each event, in particular through the direct involvement of end-users in the validation activities and invitation of external guests to provide feedback and input.

In parallel to technical activities, project promotion was carried through communication, dissemination and exploitation activities, first through the establishment of initial plans and means (website, social media presence, communication and dissemination process, identification of Key Exploitable Results, IPR registry). The project organised and participated in various online and physical events. The Community of Safe and Secure Cities (COSSEC) was established at the beginning of the project and grew until the end, in particular to include a greater representation of cities and civilians. All partners were involved in defining exploitation strategies and dissemination mechanisms.

The technical results above constitute 10 Key Exploitable Results (KERs), for which an exploitation plan was developed, including three levels: (a) Individual exploitation plans, , outlining information specific to each KER and including opportunities and exploitation routes, (b) analysis and timeline for future development, (c) a joint exploitation strategy, outlining all the plans that involve simultaneous use of multiple Partners’ and/or project’s results.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The tools developed in the course of the project are a mixture of improvements of existing tools (best-of-breed technologies) and some new developments. Although some of these tools are already mature, the project integrated them with other capabilities in a unique platform and with newly developed tools in a smart infrastructure protection scenario. Their combination within this project goes beyond the state of the art as the technologies represent already leading-edge developments in their fields and will be combined for the first time in the smart city domain. This approach allowed to include a variety of organisations and users along the chain of management of security events in public spaces, including intelligence operators, security operators and SOC operators.

The main expected long-term impact of the project is improved public safety, ethical and more effective security operations in smart cities. Some of the tools help security staff to respond quickly and reduce/prevent negative consequences, including through detecting events that could not be detected before. Increased effectiveness of security staff is supported by specific tools as well as enhanced situational awareness through the centralization of actions and communications around the IMPETUS Platform.

The Practitioners Guides provide staff with advice and educational materials. Through demonstrating feasibility and providing guidance, the project can contribute to improvements in how organisations deal with ethical and privacy issues, cybersecurity or operational issues arising from the implementation of the technological solutions.

Improvements in security brought about the IMPETUS solutions are expected to produce significant positive societal impacts in other areas, such as relative to gender gaps in security, since women tend to experience insecurity in public spaces more than men do, or relative to the positive financial impact of reducing costs associated with crime.

The social implications of an increased feeling of safety are highly significant. Even though improvements in security are achieved, it may happen that citizens do not necessarily perceive these changes and feel safer; there can also be negative impacts due to the perception of increased surveillance. Open, two-way dialogue with citizens is needed to achieve understanding and compromise.

IMPETUS at the intersection of technology, processes and ethics