Comune di Trento – €50,000 Fine (Italy, 2024)

The Italian DPA received the news about a new AI-driven surveillance system implemented by the municipality of Trento, the controller, with the support of FBK, a research foundation. In the context of a social experiment, the controller allowed the deployment of three projects, “Marvel” and “Protector”, concluded by now, and “Precrisis” still to be activated, using AI systems that were developed by the foundation in order to collect data from public areas in the municipality by means of videocameras and microphones that could serve the aim of preventing potential situations of danger to the public. Upon learning about these facts, the DPA initiated an investigation into the processing operations related to the above mentioned projects by the controller and asked it to provide further information. Among other things, the controller specified that the projects were EU-funded and provided details about the technical functioning of each of them. In particular, “Marvel” is aimed at developing an automated system analysing real-time audiovisual scenes in order to detect urban security issues. The foundation has access to the recordings of the public cameras in the municipality, which are instantly anonymized and analysed in the workstations of the foundation. The “Protector” project instead is aimed at improving security around places of worship, especially against the risk of hate crimes and terror attacks. The platform acquires video data from cameras present in the areas around places of worship and textual data derived from social media hate comments which are then elaborated by an AI system in order to detect possible relevant risks. Here too, the foundation has real-time access to the recordings which are instantly anonymized. Lastly, as regards the “Precrisis” project, the controller submitted that this has not been implemented yet but will be activated soon, upon adopting the necessary measures for ensuring compliance with the GDPR. Further, the controller submi