The Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conference in Brussels in January 2016, led by Damian Clifford (KU Leuven), hosted a well-attended panel session ‘Data protection and open data in the smart city environment’ place. PhD Lorenzo dalla Corte (Knowledge Open Data), expert in this field, was the initiator of this panel. Also three other panelists (Rosana Lemut Strle, Fidel Santiago and Paolo Balboni) gave a presentation. The CPDP conference is the largest in the field of data security.
In their presentations, the panelists pointed out the dangers of large-scale smart technologies, that system designs must be sufficiently able to withstand them, and that the sector must actively enforce a sound legal framework. The panelists emphasised in their presentations that there is still no unambiguous solution for keeping in balance the interests of free provision of data on the one hand and the right to privacy and protection of personal data on the other. The discussion resulted in the call to abandon releasing data without but to switch to a system that reduces unwanted identification and data abuse.