PRoTECT Web conference 2: What considerations should cities take into account when considering the adoption of technologies to protect public spaces?

PRoTECT – a project co-funded by the European Union’s ISFP programme, aims to strengthen local authorities’ capabilities in the protection of areas in public space that could potentially be soft targets for terrorism. By applying an overarching concept where tools, technology, training and field demonstrations will lead to enhanced situational awareness and improvement of a direct response before, during and after a terrorist attack, the project seeks to ultimately strengthen security in public spaces.

In order to promote the exchange of experiences, the European Forum for Urban Security (Efus), in the framework of PRoTECT, is launching  a series of web conferences on the protection of public spaces and soft targets. The aim of these online sessions is to discuss and raise awareness of the role of local authorities in the protection of public spaces, as well as to propose tools to support them in this endeavour.

The topic of the second web conference is: What considerations should cities take into account when considering the adoption of technologies to protect public spaces?

Given the current context of terrorist threat, cities are seeking to protect their public spaces by acquiring technological solutions, however, oftentimes they are confronted with an overwhelming market of technologies that proposes a significant number of solutions.

This session will discuss the challenges local authorities face when they acquire new technologies. How to evaluate technologies for the protection of public spaces?  What are the needs of cities when choosing a technology?  What information needs to be gathered about existing solutions in the market? What criteria for the evaluation need to be defined?

Date: 17 March 2021

Time: 14:00 CET