Introduction
The municipality of The Hague strives for data-driven work* and foresees a high degree of reliance on Smart City services paired with a high demand for connectivity, sensors, data and electricity in the future development of the city and in executing its public duties. This requires the building of an integrated system specifically for these purposes that facilitate a fine mesh connectivity network with city wide coverage – a ‘digital infrastructure’.
*The term ‘data-driven work’ is understood to mean decision-making and management based on facts, figures and sensory observations. In organisations where data-driven work occurs, decisions are taken based on facts and figures and not on biased preferences or unfounded opinions.
Data plays a crucial role in the Living Lab Scheveningen. The digital infrastructure allows space for traffic management, measuring the quality of the living environment, safety monitoring, commercial and informative i-services etc. These applications are largely based on data. In the ongoing Living Lab Scheveningen project under the ‘Smart City The Hague’ programme, the need was expressed for formulating the architecture and associated concept selections for a data hub for sensors and connections within the system architecture. This document describes the relevant data architecture and the concept selections. In this case, the concept selections are also the rules that apply to obtaining and applying data in the public space. The objective of this architecture is to facilitate a data platform in the Living Lab Scheveningen project for the Smart City experiments.
Management summary
This management summary contains some crucial starting points (selections) that are described further in the document. The purpose of the table below is to clarify these starting points.
| No. | Selection | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shared, unless | Three types of data are identified: open, shared, closed. Open data is public, free, copyright free and paid for through public funds. Shared data is the property of the entity that generated the data. The data is only shared with external entities subject to financial or procedural agreements. Closed data cannot be shared if they contain confidential or personal information, for example. The Living Lab Scheveningen infrastructure will create an open access system which will apply to the data as well as the physical infrastructure. It will be a model where the use of data is not linked to the production of the data. Shared data creates greater opportunity to create applications for the different silos (parking, safety, environment etc.). The guiding principle is shared ‘unless’, open where possible. The ‘unless’ aspect is in compliance with the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations directives. This position consciously deviates from existing policy frameworks. The experiences in the Living Lab Scheveningen will be used to modify the policy frameworks where necessary to foster the best possible public-private collaborations in the city. |
| 2 | Generic implementation domain for data. | A ‘data ecosystem’ will be created to store and distribute data. The same consistent financial and procedural rules will apply to the generic domain. The mandatory use of the generic domain will be dependent on assessing whether the data in question is open, accessible or closed. |
| 3 | Coupling to third party data platforms for aggregated and anonymised data from the LLS. | Data, collected in the LLS’ digital infrastructure, will not always be sent to the generic domain through the LAN/WAN. The data may come from the data platform of the owner of the data producer. This requires the platforms to be connected and agreements made about issues such as aggregating and anonymising data. |
| 4 | Data principles. | The Living Lab Scheveningen will comply with the VNG’s (union of Dutch municipalities) ‘Principles for the digital society’ and with the integrated policy framework for data, privacy, security and information management. The municipality-wide data strategy is leading. |
| 5 | Asset manager data marketplace. | The platform will be managed by an ‘Urban Operator’ that operates under the regulations of the municipality. |
| 6 | Drawing up the taxonomy. | The owner of the data producer is required to incorporate definitions in the meta data. The intention is that the taxonomy of the different data collected in the digital infrastructure is drawn up in advance. |
| 7 | Responsibility for quality with source owner. | The owner of the source of the data is required to specify the quality of the data in the meta data and guarantee that the quality falls within the limits. The market regulator will monitor this. |
| 8 | Monitor adherence to privacy legislation and frameworks in data aggregation and combination. | The relevant legislation and regulations apply to the combining of data (including the General Data Protection Regulation). |
| 9 | Design sensor register. | A registration system (‘sensor register’) will be designed to record what sensors there are and where, and what data is collected and for what purpose. It will also state what data does not fall within the scope of the sensor. |