InREAKT Workshop "New ways of privacy-friendly video surveillance in public transport"
As part of the research project "InREAKT - Integrated Aid Response Chains to Increase the Safety of Public Transport", the STUVA organized the second workshop on November 12, 2014 in Dusseldorf entitled "New ways of privacy-friendly video surveillance in public transport". The central component of InREAKT is the development of an innovative, self-learning and self-optimizing technical assistance system to support the control centers of transport companies.
In order to protect passengers and employees, safety-critical situations and emergencies in public transport are to be automatically detected and suitable reaction measures initiated. The system is based on combined optical, acoustic and mechanical sensors to identify critical situations analog to the human senses by "seeing", "hearing", "feeling". In contrast to conventional surveillance systems, the sensors used in InREAKT are designed to look at models that do not allow people to be identified. For example, they are abstracted as "stick figures" and their movements are analyzed (depth image process, Figure 4). Only in the case of critically defined movement patterns does the responsible control center employee receive a signal, a video camera at the event location is activated and transmits the actual picture of the event. This event-related consideration of video images is advantageous from a data protection point of view. In addition, the InREAKT sensors do not store data, so that the principles of data avoidance and data minimization can be met in the best possible way.
The participants of the workshop, predominantly responsible for safety employees of transport companies, data protection officers and experts from security research, a comprehensive technical and legal overview of video surveillance was offered. On the agenda were lectures on practical experiences with video surveillance, trends and developments in the security area, as well as analyzes of technical and legal framework conditions. The speakers presented innovative technical systems such as optical and acoustic sensors for the detection of safety-critical situations and emergencies, and in particular their data protection assessment. There was also plenty of room for lively exchange of ideas and discussions. It became clear that intelligent surveillance systems - like InREAKT - are less invasive of privacy than conventional video surveillance systems. Feedback from the exchanges with participants, including, among others, the later end users, will feed into the project work in order to tailor the project's goals and desired innovations to actual needs. The STUVA is the overall coordinator of the research project "InREAKT - Integrated Aid Response Chains for Increasing the Safety of Public Transport", which is run by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the program "Research for Civil Security" over a period of 3 years (October 2013 to September 2016). Abstracts of all lectures presented in the workshop are put together in a conference volume, which is available for free download on www.inreakt.de.
