As part of a public lecture series on digitalisation at WWU Münster, Christian Kray yesterday (Nov 5, 2018) delivered a public lecture on “Participation, integration and transparency in an urban context: the benefits and pitfalls of digitalisation” (Teilhabe, Integration und Transparenz im urbanen Kontext: Digitalisierung als Chance und Gefahr).  In his lecture, he introduced the basic idea behind smart cities and gave an overview of the potential benefits and dangers that such cities hold.  He then presented the GEO-C project and some example results before focussing on location information and location privacy, the topic investigated by Mehrnaz Ataei (ESR13).  Using the lecture itself as an example scenario, he explained why location information can provide deep insights on the person who is sharing it.  Highlighting the importance of a concerted effort, he then pointed out how different stakeholders can contribute towards countering the dangers and realising the benefits of smart cities, based on the results produced by Mehrnaz Ataei.  He concluded by providing an outlook on future developments.  In the plenary question and answer session following the presentations, topics such as data protection, political implications and social scoring were discussed.

The lecture slides are available for download here and the podcast can be accessed here (both in German).