As the first Dutch municipality, Krimpen aan den Ijssel, became part of United Smart Cities, a worldwide program of the European Economic Commission of the United Nations (UNECE) and the Organization for International Economic Relations (OiER).
Krimpen aan den IJssel has become a member of United for Sustainable Cities (U4SSC), a worldwide platform that for instance aims to encourage the use of ICT in cities to make the transition to smart and sustainable cities by using technology. How did this membership come into existence?
'About a year ago I was approached by the “Join Smart Cities” project, a project that connects residents, entrepreneurs and governments. The purpose of the United Nations, which initiated this project, is to eventually connect the whole world with each other. Starting at the micro level from the street to the neighborhood, the neighborhood, the village, the municipality, the province, the country, Europe and ultimately the world. This is fully in line with the vision of the municipality of Krimpen aan den IJssel. Through this project, with which we will start next year, we have been approached by USC. '
What kind of data is shared and researched from Krimpen?
'We will be the first Dutch municipality to undergo a kind of audit on hundreds of KPIs. How many people have access to fast internet? How many people have access to public transport? How many people have clean drinking water? You name it. These are indicators that are being researched for the entire world, including in places like Nairobi and Tokyo. '
What about the GDPR? To what extent should this privacy law be taken into account when sharing the data with the UN?
'The GDPR does not apply because it concerns general community figures. Almost all of them have already been published on a platform, but not anywhere in the world in a single index. Statistics Netherlands has a large share of this data, but also on sites such as' waarstaatjegemeente.nl’.
United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) is a global platform that aims to encourage the use of ICT in cities to make the transition to smart and sustainable cities by using technology. The platform, established in 2016, focuses among other things on applications for 'city science' and the application of IoT, cognitive computing, data processing and blockchain in cities.
The Sector Association for ICT and Telecommunications (BTG) is, in its own words, the driving force behind the program in the Netherlands. 'BTG is in talks with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, with RVO (Netherlands Enterprise Agency) and VNG about the way in which Dutch municipalities and companies are involved in this program', according to the trade association.
BTG members who are already involved with U4SSC are KPN, T-Mobile, Vodafone and Tele2. As so-called solution partners, Commscope, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, IBM, Dimension Data, VolkerWessels Telecom, Alliander, Sennheiser, Siemens, CCV, Data Club and Unify are part of the project.
In addition to the municipality of Krimpen aan den IJssel, BTG is also discussing the program with the municipalities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Den Bosch and The Hague.
Source: https://www.computable.nl/artikel/nieuws/datamanagement/6474440/250449/gdpr-geldt-niet-bij-data-krimpen-aan-den-ijssel.html
