Urenio Watch Watch: Intelligent Cities / Smart Cities

New Technical Report on Smart Cities Related Standardisation and Citizen Requirements

The ETSI Human Factors Technical Committee has released ETSI TR 103 455, a Technical Report that assesses citizen-related issues that smart city-related standardization in the ICT domain needs to address.   The present document is based on the recognition of local communities as users of standards rather than participants, and highlights the importance of addressing their needs within standardisation documentation.  The issues that are being addressed include  accessibility, usability, interoperability, personal data protection and security, among others. The study gives an overview of existing ETSI and other SDOs standards in that field, including ETSI community indicators. It also aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 “Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’.

Scope of the Document

The issues which the present document assesses are grouped into the following:

  • citizens’ general needs
  • citizens and their local authorities
  • citizens and their local services
  • citizen indicators
  • recommendations

For each of the issues that are being analysed, the present document:

  • provides a short statement of the subject area;
  • makes a short statement of the key citizen concerns related to the  subject;
  • lists relevant current standards and ongoing relevant standards activities;
  • assesses whether it appears the activities are in practice taking reasonable account of the smart city/community  dimension from the perspective of citizen welfare, and if not, what might be needed to rectify the position;
  • identifies any further general legal and ethical issues that require attention outside the standardization domain,  or other issues not covered.

At the European level, the CEN-CENELEC-ETSI Smart and Sustainable Cities Co-ordination Group (SSCC-CG)  originally proposed the development of a Technical Report on citizen-related issues, later taken up in the  European Commission ICT Standardization Rolling Action Plans for 2016 and 2017. The present document is intended to clarify whether further standardization is needed on citizen issues related to smart cities (e.g. on what, where, when, etc.), and to take full account of other standards activities under way. At the same time, it supports recommendations that are being made at policy levels.

The present document provides a series of recommendations aimed at helping to bridge existing gaps, including the difficulties of cities with smaller communities to engage with standardization. According to ETSI, it is expected that  these can be taken forward within the European Standardization Agenda, and the wider eco-system of which it is a part.

Matthias Schneider, TC Human Factors Chairman, said that the Report constitutes the first time that local community citizen and consumer requirements in the context of standardization have been addressed. It provides a helpful basis for future standardization to better involve local communities.

About ETSI

ETSI produces globally applicable standards for ICT-enabled systems, applications and services deployed across all sectors of industry and society. It is a not-for-profit body with more than 900 member organizations worldwide, drawn from 65 countries and five continents. Members comprise a diversified pool of large and small private companies, research entities, academia, government and public organizations. ETSI is officially recognized by the EU as a European Standards Organization (ESO).

You can find the report  here.