Using Technology Democratically: Development of a Self-Assessment Tool to Support Urban Security Authorities

Local security authorities are using innovative technologies (including drones, CCTV, biometric sensors, predictive algorithmic tools, etc.) to protect their communities. In major European cities and other urban contexts, their use is becoming more common, while at the same time many new ethical, legal, and social issues are emerging. Given the conceptual and technical complexity of these issues, there is a significant risk that the undemocratic use of these innovative technologies by local authorities may adversely affect citizens' civil rights and liberties. A key objective of this paper is to address the conceptual and applied gaps associated with the use of innovative technologies to enhance urban security in terms of ethical, legal, and social implications. This overall objective has been achieved through the development of an open-source self-assessment tool which will allow local security authorities to analyse their specific technology use cases and help them make critical decisions. The democratic use of innovative technologies for urban security (DUTUS) is defined as a set of practices that simultaneously meet the following three interrelated requirements: (1) legal compliance, (2) ethical commitment, and (3) positive social impact. Finally, it identifies some of the key structural, methodological, and practical challenges of the tool and how they can be addressed by end-users.