Logo Loading

Use Case 4 · Secure Affective Participatory Sensing of City Events (Fujisawa & Santander)

Overall description

Use Case 4 explores the possibility of secure sharing on citizens’ affective information and information on the city. In the city, there are many different events occurring every day. As a means of detecting/sensing such occurring, participatory sensing solutions that let people (citizens and possibly additional visitors) report such events, from their own (human’s) perspective, with their mobile devices (e.g., smartphones), are getting popular. However, protection of privacy information in such sensing methodology was yet to be explored, thus it is the main focus of this use case. By using “SmileCityReport” (affective participatory sensing platform on mobile devices), “GANonymizer” which enables edge-(mobile)-side computation for privacy protection, and SOXFire for secure data sharing of sensed information, the users’ photo-based report on a local happening will be shared among multiple users, after privacy protection processing of the taken photos. Moreover, the photo reports are securely shared only among defined “groups” in SmileCityReport so that only the member user can view the photos each other. As a cross-border use case, this use case focuses firstly on Fujisawa and then, it was expanded to Santander, providing a cross boarder use case.

Challenges it addresses

In the severe situation of the COVID-19, Use Case 4 first conducted an actual demonstration at an event in Fujisawa City. Specifically, at the event “Fujisawa Jazz Meetin’ 2020” in Fujisawa City held on November 7th 2020, the first demonstration experiment was conducted using the 1 st version of SmileCityReport.

In August 2021, when the pilot was conducted in the final year of the project, the number of people infected with COVID-19 reached its peak in Japan, so it was not possible to collaborate with real citizen events such as the 2020 Jazz event. Therefore, the 2021 pilot was conducted completely online with a total of 290 public participants from Fujisawa City and Santander.

(left click the picture for a better view)

The M-Sec approach

Use Case 4 uses SmileCityReport to provide a secure, participatory sensing platform for citizen events. Furthermore, we aimed to become a cross-border pilot in collaboration with Santander from Fujisawa City this time. In order to realize these, M-Sec’s MarketPlace function is combined with the SmileCityReport environment that can be linked globally under the multi-layer security mechanism of M-Sec.

From the privacy protection view point, UC4 implements “GANonymizer” tool that automatically erases privacy-related information from images taken with the mobile phone’s front camera, by image processing using deep learning. Below some examples of pictures before and after applying the “GANonymizer” tool are shown.

Pilot implementation

Use Case 4 pilot is planned as following 3 PHASEs as described in section pilot setup:

  • PHASE 1 – Fujisawa City Event (M28): The 1 st Use Case 4 actual pilot at “Fujisawa Jazz Meetin’ 2020“ on 7th of November 2020

  • PHASE 2 – Fujisawa City Pre-Final Trial (M36 – M37): Pre-Final pilot in Fujisawa city by 260 user participants

  • PHASE 3 – Cross Border Trial with Santander (M39): Final pilot as actual cross border pilot EU and Japan

(left click the picture for a better view)

Main results and next steps

Use Case 4 Pilot was conducted based on participatory sensing using the smartphone application “SmileCityReport”. Based on the secure smart city platform provided by M-Sec project, citizens of Santander and Fujisawa have actually participated in a “Cross Border Citizen-participatory pilot”, thus illustrating the Japan-Europe collaboration of the M-Sec project. Use Case 4 has been carried out step-by-step with three PHASEs to concretely realize this challenging Pilot requirement. In the 2nd year of the project, the world was already in the harsh environment of COVID-19, but at the citizen Jazz event “Fujisawa Jazz Meetin” held in Fujisawa City, the demonstration using the smartphone application “Smile City Report” for the first time was carried out as PHASE1. And in the final 3rd year of the project, under the environment of COVID-19 deteriorated further, but as PHASE2, 1,340 posts were posted from 250 participants while participating completely online in Fujisawa City. And in the final stage, PHASE 3, we held a cross-border Pilot with a total of 40 participants from each of Santander and Fujisawa.

Of particular note is that the 46 cross-border posts were exchanged between Santander and Fujisawa, even if under their limited translation capabilities, and even if they didn’t understand each other’s languages. Actually, there were restrictions due to the difficulty of maintaining a certain level of quality on many Android models in addition to the iPhone and the limited translation function, but toward future development, it was a very good reference.

Lessons learnt

UC4 Pilot was conducted based on participatory sensing using the smartphone application “SmileCityReport”. Based on the secure smart city platform provided by M-Sec project, citizens of Santander and Fujisawa have actually participated in a “Cross Border Citizen-participatory pilot”, thus illustrating the Japan-Europe collaboration of the M-Sec project.

UC4 has been carried out step-by-step with three PHASEs to concretely realize this challenging Pilot requirement. In the 2nd year of the project, the world was already in the harsh environment of COVID-19, but at the citizen Jazz event “Fujisawa Jazz Meetin’ ” held in Fujisawa City, the demonstration using the smartphone application “Smile City Report” for the first time was carried out as PHASE1. And in the final 3rd year of the project, under the environment of COVID-19 deteriorated further, but as PHASE2, 1,340 posts were posted from 250 participants while participating completely online in Fujisawa City. And in the final stage, PHASE 3, we realized a cross-border Pilot with a total of 40 participants from each of Santander and Fujisawa. Of particular note is that the 46 cross-border posts were exchanged between Santander and Fujisawa, even if under their limited translation capabilities, and even if they didn’t understand each other’s languages. Actually, there were restrictions due to the difficulty of maintaining a certain level of quality on many Android models in addition to the iPhone and the limited translation function, but toward future development, it was a very good reference.

How can I join?

Contact Jin Nakazawa: [email protected]

1

1

Download the Use Case 4 Product Sheet

And watch our latest video on Use Case 4 implementation

Date 24/09/2018
Category use-cases

Enter your keyword

X