The Institute for Public Security of Catalonia (ISPC) is the main centre for the creation, management and transfer of security and emergency-related knowledge in Catalonia, Spain. It is the leading organisation for comprehensive training and support in the recruitment and professional development of key security personnel, as well as the promotion of studies, research and innovation in public security. Its primary objective is to provide training to all security force members in Catalonia, including police officers (local and regional), firefighters, civil protection personnel and rural agents, among others. In research and innovation projects, ISPC relies on extensive access to end users and the role as a link between academia and security professionals, and also in the experience in different methodological approaches, integrating both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. ISPC creates and validates protocols, best practices, guidelines, training resources and technological solutions to improve the professional training and operational response of public security system members.

Management of ethical aspects of the project

As a leading research centre in public safety in Catalonia, the ISPC has extensive experience in
managing ethical and legal issues relating to research involving human participants. Within the
PANTHEON project, the ISPC chairs its ethics committee, which is composed of two other
members of the consortium. Through active collaboration with the other project partners, the
main ethical requirements that guarantee the highest standards of research were established
and monitored. This included: (1) establishing the ethical principles that guide all research
activities of the project, (2) establishing the criteria and procedures for recruitment for
research activities involving human participants, (3) the design and implementation of an
Informed Consent Form and its collection processes, (4) the design, implementation, and
monitoring of data protection measures and techniques, (5) the identification and analysis of
AI risks, as well as the design of mitigation measures in this regard, and (6) the production and
approval by an ethics committee external to the consortium of an ethical research protocol.
A template was designed for reporting ethical, legal and social risks, and a process was created
and implemented whereby the different partners who identified risks could centralise them to
the PANTHEON Ethics Committee, which analysed the risk and proposed and implemented
mitigation measures.

Establishment of ethical, legal and social requirements for the PANTHEON system

Given the ISPC’s experience in ethical matters and the validation of technological solutions for
end users in the security and emergency sector, the ISPC led the task of establishing specific
requirements to ensure that the PANTHEON system met the highest ethical, legal, and social
standards. In collaboration with relevant partners, the impact of new technologies on key
human rights and the associated legal instruments was identified and analysed. Having
analysed the ethical, legal and social risks posed by the main components of the PANTHEON
system (SCDT, IoT, AI and UAVs), the corresponding mitigation measures were established. All
of the above formed the basis for formulating the Ethical Framework, which is based on a
security- and privacy-by-design approach and guided the main product of the task: the design
recommendations.

Production of the end-user training programme on the PANTHEON System

As the ISPC is Catalonia’s leading security and safety training centre, it also led the training of
the end users of the PANTHEON system. With cooperation from relevant partners, the
programme’s fundamental pillars were established. Firstly, training needs were identified
based on the DRM actors’ roles and the tasks they had to perform with the PANTHEON system.
This resulted in the learning objectives. Secondly, the training content was established and
developed to design and produce the training support materials. Finally, the satisfaction of the
TTX participants with the training was evaluated, as well as their perception of learning in
relation to the PANTHEON platform and its usefulness. The evaluation aimed to identify
possible areas for improvement in the training to ensure the acceptance of the technology by
end users.