IMPETUS Information letter

 

 

IMPETUS:
Intelligent Management of Processes, Ethics and Technology for Urban Safety

A Research and Innovation Action in Horizon 2020, Secure Societies
(Grant number: 883286)

 

This information concerns participation in interviews, focus group, survey and questionnaires in the research project IMPETUS, that aims to enhance the resilience of smart cities in the face of security threats in public space. The project 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 multiple interconnected AI systems that control key infrastructures within a Smart City. IMPETUS will help protect citizens against the unethical use of personal data and will facilitate threat detection by assisting with physical and cyber security management. It has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

We are inviting participants among the practitioners and citizens (representatives) including those directly involved in physical and cyber security management, policy makers, service providers/operators of critical infrastructure, managers and first responders and public organisations. We are looking for persons who wish to participate to interviews, focus groups and/or contribute to a questionnaire and/or exercises.

Research approach

The IMPETUS approach addresses three complementary but overlapping areas:

  • Technologies: use the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data analysis to integrate and develop the 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 the decision making of multiple city stakeholders involved

The consortium consists of 17 partners from 11 different European Union members and associated countries.  It brings together five research institutions, seven specialist industrial and SME companies, three NGOs and two local municipalities. Major on-street trials will be held in the municipal cities of Oslo, Norway and Padova, Italy. The consortium will be complemented by COSSEC (Community of Safe and Secure Cities) - a group of end-users and other stakeholders who will provide feedback on IMPETUS operations. The COSSEC will be invited to participate in interviews, focus group, workshops and questionnaire for development and evaluation of IMPETUS results.

Who receives this invitation?

Practitioners and citizen representatives including those directly involved physical and cyber security management, policy makers, service providers/operators of critical infrastructure, managers and first responders and public organizations. IMPETUS will only recruit professionals.

What does it mean to “participate” in the project?

Participants may be invited to join one or more activities, such as interviews, workshops/focus groups, surveys or questionnaires. You can choose yourself which invitations to accept.

An interview typically takes between one hour and one and a half hours. Typically, two persons from the IMPETUS project team will take part in the interview. To avoid travelling, we prefer to use teleconference as much as possible.

Workshops/focus groups are interactive events involving multiple participants. These will take place online or in a meeting room depending on the needs and availability of those attending. Participants will collaborate with researchers from the IMPETUS team to discuss issues related to end-user applicability and acceptance of  IMPETUS solutions. The duration of each workshop will be defined according to the specific scope (typically it might vary from a few hours up to two days).

Surveys/questionnaires will ask you to answer some questions and/or provide some information about yourself and/or your opinions.  These will use a textual format, either by completion and return of printed forms or some secure, web-based solution.

What information will we collect about you and how will it be stored?

We will ask questions about opinions and concerns about ethical issues in smart cities technologies. We will take note of the answers. If you allow, we will also use audio recording.

The directly identifiable personal data will be linked to the collected data through a reference number which refers to a separate list of names. This list will be stored separately from the data on a secured server in a network belonging to the project coordinator in a folder with access control based on password. Only the project coordinator and project team members who will have direct contact with you will have access to it.

Sensitive personal information such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, membership in trade unions or health related data will not be asked during the interviews, but such information might be unintentionally collected if provided voluntarily.

What will happen with information about you?

We will process your personal data based on your consent. All personal information will be treated confidentially. Information that you provide in connection with the participation will not be linked to you in public documents. Nor will it be possible to identify who has participated in project activities in scientific or any other publications produced by the project. The list of participant names and contact information for participants will be kept separate from the information collected during interviews and other activities. Only the project manager and IMPETUS project team members who have direct contact with you will have access to this list. The list of names, interview transcripts and recordings will be deleted as soon as they are no longer needed, and in any case no later than 6 months after the project has been completed.

Who carries out the project?

IMPETUS is funded by the EU Commission and is carried out by a consortium of partners.  The full list of partner names is available on the project website at  https://www.impetus-project.eu/.  The consortium includes partners from: France, Belgium, Estonia, Italy, Israel, Romania, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Croatia and Norway. The partners collecting data in the project are SINTEF (Norway), City of Oslo (Norway), City of Padova (Italy) and the Institute for Security Policies (Croatia). These partners have joint control and responsibility of the data collected, and are required to fulfil the rights of any data subject according to the GDPR.

SINTEF (Norway) coordinates IMPETUS. The Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) oversee that ethical and legal rules are properly enforced by the project.

How long will the project last?

IMPETUS is planned to end 31.08.2022.

Voluntary participation

It is voluntary to participate in the project, and you can at any time withdraw your consent without giving any reason. If you withdraw, all your personal information, interview transcripts and recordings will be erased immediately.

Legal rights

So long as you can be identified in the collected data, you have the right to: access the personal data that is being processed about you, request that your personal data is deleted, request that incorrect personal data about you is corrected/rectified, receive a copy of your personal data (data portability), and send a complaint to the Data Protection Officer or The Norwegian Data Protection Authority regarding the processing of your personal data.

Contact persons

The contact persons for the specific activity/activities in which you have been asked to take part are:

            Jelena Radosevic, ISP, Croatia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
            Krunoslav Katic, ISP, Croatia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you have concerns regarding security issues you should contact:

            Security Officer: Per Håkon Meland, SINTEF, Norway, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you have concerns related to ethical issues you should contact:

            Ethics Manager: Krunoslav Katic, ISP, Croatia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you have concerns related to data protection, you could contact the Data Protection Officer (DPO) relevant to your location:

  • SINTEF
    • Name of the DPO: Jan Wåge - Data Protection Coordinator
    • Contact details: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • City of Oslo
    • Name of the DPO: Eirik Bærulfsen
    • Contact details: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • City of Padova
    • Name of the DPO: Paolo Rossi
    • Contact details: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you have any general questions about IMPETUS, or are unsure who the appropriate person is to contact for the particular question you have or issue you wish to raise, you should contact:

            Project Coordinator: Joe Gorman, SINTEF, Norway This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.