On 28 October, the city of Amsterdam started using a new software to netter anonymise people on street scenes even better. While people’s faces were already blurred out, the new tool, called Blurring as a Service can hide more identifying characteristics, further improving residents’ privacy.
The software, which was developed entirely by the city, was designed to be used by street mapping cars, on images of public spaces submitted by Amsterdam residents who report issues or on images through which the municipality, for example, analyses traffic situations.
Amsterdam residents should be able to go into public spaces unobserved. It is therefore very important that we develop new tools and initiatives that even better guarantee the privacy of residents and visitors.
Alexander Scholtes, Amsterdam City Councillor
The algorithm has been developed with care for privacy and ethical issues, the city said in a statement. “The right to privacy applies to both the online and offline world. This self-developed software ensures that images from the city cannot be traced back to people”, explained city councillor Alexander Scholtes.
The new algorithm ensures greater anonymity of people on municipal images. Where previously only faces were blurred, entire persons are now blurred. The algorithm is trained in such a way that various personal characteristics such as age, gender or skin colour are also recognized and made invisible. Eventually, details like license plates will also be blurred out.
“Protecting the privacy of our citizens has our continuous attention and we see continued development as necessary to continue to meet all privacy, bias and transparency requirements. Therefore, the municipality has chosen to develop its own blur algorithm, so that the algorithm fits well with municipal practice and principles, such as privacy and ethics by design”, a city spokesperson told Cities Today.
Initially, the Blurring as a Service software is used to anonymize panoramic images that provide a 360-degree view of public space from street level. It can then also be used for other municipal services. The tool has been added in the algorithm register, a database offering an overview of all the algorithms that the municipality of Amsterdam uses for municipal services.
