One major concern in the development of assistive technologies lies in the claim for responsible research and the consideration of ethical, legal and social implications of technology development. At a time in which technology developments – fostered by the huge and tremendously fast-evolving innovations through modern information and communication technologies – enter private spheres and come into close contact with individual, private, and intimate activities, it is a mandatory claim that any technology development should be carefully developed and balanced within societal, cultural and individual values, and norms.

Assistive technologies based on computer vision, multimedia data processing and understanding, and machine intelligence present several advantages in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, camera sensors are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance that other wearable sensors may cause to people’s activities. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring activities, movements, and overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters (e.g., heart rate, respiratory rate). However, cameras are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information that this technology conveys and the intimate setting where it may be deployed in. Therefore, solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and design as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand.

This STS aims to give forum for contributions presenting and discussing image- and video-based AAL applications, projects and research as well as initiatives proposing ethical and privacy-aware solutions.

This STS is supported by the visuAAL Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (https://www.visuaal-itn.eu) and the GoodBrother COST Action (https://goodbrother.eu). The aim of these projects is to bridge the knowledge gap between users’ requirements and the appropriate and secure use of video-based AAL technologies to deliver effective and supportive care to older adults managing their health and wellbeing. They seek to increase awareness and understanding of the context-specific ethical, legal, privacy and societal issues necessary to implement visual system across hospital, home and community settings, in a manner that protects and reassures users; outputs will stimulate the development of a new research perspective for constructively addressing privacy-aware video-based working solutions for assisted living.

visuAAL is a four-year (2020-2024) Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network, which brings together 5 beneficiaries and 14 partner organisations from Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. visuAAL is providing a transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral combination of training, non-academic placements, courses and workshops on scientific and complementary skills to 15 high achieving Early Stage Researchers.

GoodBrother is an interdisciplinary community of researchers and industrial partners from different fields (computing, engineering, healthcare, law, sociology) and other stakeholders (users, policy makers, public services), stimulating new research and innovation. GoodBrother currently involves more tan 150 experts from 44 countries.

Topics

We seek contributions that include, but are not limited to:

• Video-based assistive technologies:
  • Lifelogging and self-monitoring
  • Human activity and behaviour recognition
  • Personal and daily-life assistance
  • Remote monitoring of vital signs
  • Gesture recognition
  • Fall detection and prevention
  • Emotional state recognition
  • Food intake monitoring
  • Mobility assessment and frailty recognition
  • Cognitive and motor rehabilitation•
• User acceptance
• Awareness and understanding of context-specific ethical, legal, privacy and societal
  issues
• Privacy-aware technologies
• GDPR requirements of AAL solutions
• Responsible research for older people
• Fair systems
• Best practices for interdisciplinary collaborations between law, IT, care and/or
  sociology

Chairs

• Francisco Florez-Revuelta, Universidad de Alicante, Spain
• Sara Colantonio, Institute of Information Science and Technologies of the National Research Council of Italy, Italy
• Martin Kampel, Computer Vision Lab, Vienna University of Technology, Austria

Information: sts05 at aaate2023 dot eu