Smart city
Data makes cities manageable without surveilling people. Sensor technology creates an objective basis for decisions. Privacy by design is a prerequisite, not an add-on. The goal is a sustainable, resource-efficient city: from noise to mobility and public transport to resource use, services can be shaped more effectively with data.
Data makes cities manageable without surveilling people.
Urban decisions are often made on the basis of impressions and individual reports. Smart sensor technology changes this starting point: it captures the actual situation in public space continuously and objectively, and makes it measurable. Subjective perceptions become a reliable basis of facts that administration, business and urban society can all recognise.
For Innovation Tank, a smart city does not mean as much data as possible, but the right data: collected sparingly and processed in a GDPR-compliant way. This creates data-driven urban development that remains traceable and enables management, without observing the behaviour of individual people.
- Measured, not assumed
Continuous sensor technology replaces individual impressions with reliable values.
- A shared basis of facts
A data foundation that all parties recognise makes the debate more objective.
- Data-sparing
Only what is needed for management is collected, not the behaviour of individual people.
- Traceable
Measurement principle and analysis follow scientific standards.
Sensor technology and data protection interlock.
Two building blocks form the foundation: smart measurement technology and data protection that is anchored in the design itself.
Smart sensor technology
Smart measurement technology captures the urban situation continuously and objectively. In the HEAR pilot project, the noise sensors measure the acoustic situation in the old town, without recording conversations or storing audio data. What is measured is the situation, not the individual.
Privacy by design
Data protection is structurally anchored, not retrofitted. No personal data is processed. The requirements of the GDPR are built into the measurement principle and the architecture. This is what makes it justifiable to deploy sensor technology in public space at all.
A prerequisite, not an add-on.
Trust is created when data protection is not promised but technically guaranteed. At Innovation Tank, it is built into the measurement principle.
Data protection is part of the design.
Smart sensor technology serves to manage the city, not to surveil people. No conversations are captured, no audio recordings are made or stored and no personal data is processed. Individual people are not identifiable. The requirements of the GDPR are structurally anchored, not added afterwards. It is exactly this guarantee that makes the difference between a surveilled and a manageable city: a smart city only creates its value when people's privacy remains untouched.
HEAR: smart city in Heidelberg's old town.
HEAR creates an objective, data-based foundation to bring vibrant nightlife, tourism and business into harmony with residents' need for quiet.
Smart noise sensors have measured the acoustic situation continuously and in a data-protection-compliant way since the pilot phase in October 2025. The values form a reliable noise profile. Two automated alerting systems are in place: a direct notification to the hospitality sector for self-regulation and a digital dashboard for the municipal public-order service (KOD).
View the HEAR case study- Measures sound levels only, no voice recording or audio.
- Privacy by design, 100 % GDPR-compliant.
Further reading from research and practice.
In-depth articles on data-driven urban development and on data protection as a prerequisite.
Project HEAR creates a shared basis of facts
How a smart sensor network makes the conflict between nightlife and residents more objective through reliable data.
Read article Urban livingWhat Dies When the City Sleeps
A discussion piece on closing hours, night-time culture and the question of what city we want to be.
Read articleImplementing smart city, data-driven and data-protection-compliant.
Municipalities and administrations find scientifically supported solutions at Innovation Tank for a manageable and livable city.