Items filtered by date: October 2021

To the Members of the EUNWA

Vienna, October 2021

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

After founding the EUNWA in 2014, I have been President, enjoying the cooperation with so many good friends and colleagues. Those of you who participated in the 2019 Annual Meeting in Venice will have best memories of this event and the EUNWA can be proud of the Venice Charter that we all signed those days.

Prejudices between neighbours could prevent the creation of new Neighbourhood Watch groups and weaken the functioning of existing ones, in addition to impacting, in a broader sense, the entire community.

The 2020 Report "State of Stalkerware" has updated the data related to the Cyberstalking and Stalkerware phenomenon. This detailed report was produced by Kaspersky in tandem with Coalition Against Stalkerware. From the "State of Stalkerware", published by one of the major leaders in the production of software designed for cybersecurity, it emerges that in 2020, in Europe, there were 6.459 victims of stalkerware with Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom among the most affected countries. Globally, the countries most affected in 2020 were Russia, Brazil and the United States.

On 6 October, for the first time, the European Parliament officially took a stand against facial recognition systems and automated analysis of behavioural traits and biometric details (individual characteristics such as gait, fingerprints, DNA, voice, etc.). It called on the Commission to permanently ban the use of biometric video surveillance in public spaces to protect respect for privacy, human dignity and prevent discrimination.

A new study by Motorola Solutions reveals trends related to Public Safety and Innovative Technology. The study in question, carried out by Dr. Chris Brauer of Goldsmiths, University of London, is called "Consensus for Change”: it involved 12,000 citizens, 50 public safety agencies, commercial organizations and experts from 10 countries. Areas of interest include Germany, Italy, Australia, UK, USA, Scandinavia, Spain, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. 

The pandemic and the Covid emergency have changed the evaluation criteria for the Economist's Safe Cities Index 2021. The requirements to enter the list have been rewritten. This report, drawn up by the English magazine that ranks every two years the safest cities in the world, in the 2021 edition has rewarded above all the cities that guarantee health security.