The charging station parking lot, which signals when it is free, the street lighting, which marks a danger spot with coloured light, or the bus, which drives when it is needed: intelligent applications can make your living in the city more comfortable, efficient and safe. The world’s capital cities, in particular, are pioneers when it comes to Smart City. Less in focus and often in a tighter financial and personnel situation are cities that are not perceived as national or international heavyweights, but which are equipping their infrastructure with the Internet of Things (IoT) applications as part of modern and innovative urban development. This can benefit residents, visitors and the regional economy. As in other areas of digitization, information security is a key success factor.
In spring 2020, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) launched the study “SMIoTI (Secure Municipal Internet of Things Infrastructures)“. Together with four cities participating in the BMI model project Smart Cities (BMI press release) — Haßfurt, Kaiserslautern, Solingen and Wolfsburg — the BSI analyses existing Smart City projects with regard to their information security. At the same time, in a further step of the study, the BSI is supporting four more cities in the development of their Smart City infrastructures from the very beginning. The aim is to use the findings to make recommendations for action on IT security for digitization projects in other cities. The results will thus be made available for future municipal IoT projects. The study will continue into the second half of 2021.
“I am very pleased and grateful to the cities of Hassfurt, Kaiserslautern, Solingen and Wolfsburg for providing our experts with all information on their innovative IoT projects. Delbrück, Dresden, Paderborn and Ulm, on the other hand, will be supported by us from the very beginning in the conceptual design and implementation of their projects. In many places, the smart city infrastructures are still in their infancy. We now have an advantage from this: we can help shape information security for Smart Cities at a very early stage. As the federal cyber security authority, we want to use this study to develop measures and recommendations for action as a basis for future standards and thus help shape the information security of municipal IoT infrastructures throughout Germany,” says BSI President Arne Schönbohm.
For the city of Delbrück, mayor Werner Peitz
“Delbrück is pleased about the cooperation with the BSI and about being one of four cities in Germany to be supported by the IoT project. This is a step in the right direction to make our city more efficient, sustainable and progressive and to create additional security for urban applications”.
For the city of Dresden, Lord Mayor Dirk Hilbert
“With “MAtchUP”, the European lead project for sustainable urban development, the state capital Dresden is developing into one of the leading Smart Cities. In the field of energy, we are moving forward with smart meter gateways, adaptive street lighting and a building control centre. We are strengthening the mobility sector with intermodal mobility hubs and charging infrastructure with booking function. Here we are using a variety of sensors and communication technologies such as NB-IOT, 5G or LoRaWAN to send the collected data centrally to the urban city platform and make it available to third parties for evaluation or control. This is exactly where information security plays an increasingly important role. That is why it is very important for us to investigate and limit the risks of the municipal infrastructure together with the BSI and the project partners”.
More about the project in Dresden
For the city of Hassfurt, First Mayor Günther Werner
“Data security is a topic that is gaining more and more importance. For this reason I am pleased that the BSI is supporting us in our Smart City process and the Internet of Things. In this way, the fears of all parties involved can be countered from the very beginning.”
More info here and here about the project in Hassfurt
For the city of Kaiserslautern, Lord Mayor Dr. Klaus Weichel
“In the “Herzlich Digital” city of Kaiserslautern, where more and more IoT applications are in use, reliability in terms of cyber security is becoming increasingly important. Complete infrastructures must be secured against intruders. As a concrete IoT project for the identification of cyber security challenges, we provide our project “Smart Light Poles: Security through Lighting” with a concrete pilot implementation at the Fauthweg in Kaiserslautern. This project aims to increase the sense of security of the citizens of our city at night, bad weather conditions or dangerous situations by using adapted lighting. In this way, we want to further expand Kaiserslautern’s pioneering role in digitization and further increase the citizens’ confidence in this important future topic”.
More about the project in Kaiserslautern
For the City of Paderborn, Mayor Michael Dreier
“We are pleased to have the experts from the project team of the Federal Office for Information Security on our side already at the beginning of the development of our data platform in Paderborn. This enables us to focus on the topics of data sovereignty and data security, which are of particular importance to Paderborn anyway”.
For the city of Solingen, Lord Mayor Tim Kurzbach
“I am happy and proud that Solingen is one of the first federal Smart City model projects. Although we are known to have little money in the city treasury, as a growing city we have been investing heavily in the expansion of the digital infrastructure for years and have already gained experience with various sensors for weather, environment or parking spaces. The cooperation with the BSI is an essential component in thinking about the information security of the Smart City infrastructure from the very beginning”.
More about the project in Solingen
For the city of Ulm, Lord Mayor Gunter Czisch
“In Ulm, we have always approached the issues of the time with self-confidence and responsibility – and that means that we want to gather and take up findings even during this project. We determine who is allowed to access which sensor data and which services are offered. We don’t have to be afraid of digital change.”
For the City of Wolfsburg, First Councillor Dennis Weilmann
“I am pleased that after we became a Smart City model city of the BMI last year, we will take another important step on the way to the digital future. In Wolfsburg, we have already had an open digital platform based on open source for several years – this platform is to be further expanded for IoT applications and as the foundation of the Smart City model city of Wolfsburg. We are therefore very much looking forward to the joint exchange with experts from BSI and other cities on topics such as data security and IoT infrastructure.”
