10 cities and regions to provide SURVEILLE with technology users' input
Ten European cities and regions will provide the SURVEILLE project with the perspective of technology users and political decision makers
As part of its contribution to the “SURVEILLE” project, the European Forum for Urban Security has set up a working group of ten experienced European local and regional authorities.
It is made of the cities of Brno (Czech Republic) and Brussels (Belgium), the Emilia Romagna Region (Italy) and the Autonomous Region of Catalonia (Spain), the cities of Lisbon (Portugal), Paris (France), Rotterdam (Netherlands), Sosnowiec (Poland), Saint-Herblain (France) and Soisy-sous-Montmorency (France). Also the cities of Munich (Germany) and Belfast have agreed to contribute to its work. Many of the cities and regions have already been involved in the Forum’s initiative for a responsible and democratic use of CCTV and subscribed to the ethical Charter it had developed.
The role of the working group is to accompany the FP7 research project on ethics and efficiency of surveillance technologies SURVEILLE and thereby also to continue and develop the work of the European Forum in this field. Members will benefit from state of the art knowledge and research and provide the researchers and technology developers an “end-user perspective”. The perspective of local and regional authorities is at the same time technical, as they use technologies in real life conditions, but also political, as it is the local elected official that needs to make trade-offs and justify choices for or against certain tools.
Therefore, in the tradition of the European Forum, also this working group brings together technical experts as well as political decision makers, as the former senator and mayor of Saint-Herblain, France, Charles Gautier, who is also the president of the French Forum for Urban Security, the mayor of Soisy-sous-Montmorency Luc Strehaiano, who is also charing the French National Commission on Video Surveillance, the deputy mayor of Paris, Miriam El Khomri, the deputy mayor of Lisbon, Manuel Da Silva Brito or the deputy mayor of Sosnowiec, Agniezka Cezechowska-Kopec.
Members will come together to their first official meeting 17th October 2012 in Paris. On their agenda will be analyses of the use of security technologies, an evaluation of their usefulness as well as a political positioning of the European Forum on the use of these technologies: The upcoming international conference “Security, Democracy and Cities: The Future of Prevention” will lead to the adaption of a new manifest of European cities on urban security, which will of course have to address the issues of security technologies. The partners of the SURVEILLE research project will be part of the conference and provide local and regional authorities valuable insights.