New computer system in Venice is watching tourists’ every move

In Venice they’re tracking your phone, so they can tell exactly how many people from your country or region are in which area, at which time.

… counting exactly who is in the city…

… Tracking visitors by country and area…

CNN Travel writes:

And they’re doing it in a bid to change tourism for the better.

Welcome to Venice in a post-Covid world. The canal city may have been known as La Serenissima, or The Most Serene, during its centuries ruling the waves as the powerful Republic of Venice.

In the past few years, however, things have become rather less serene, thanks to the almost 30 million visitors who descend each year on the city of just 50,000 inhabitants.

Before Covid-19 struck, tourists were arriving in often unmanageable numbers, choking the main streets and filling up the waterbuses. Authorities had tried various measures, from introducing separate residents’ lines at major vaporetto (waterbus) stops to bringing in turnstiles that would filter locals from tourists on busy days. A planned “entrance tax,” due to debut in 2020, has been postponed to January 2022, due to the pandemic.

But as well as controlling footfall, the authorities wanted to track tourism itself — not just by registering overnight guests but, in a city where the vast majority of visitors are daytrippers, by counting exactly who is in the city — and where they go.

Enter the Venice Control Room.

….”This is the brain of the city,” says Marco Bettini, co-director general of Venis, the Venice-based multimedia and tech company which built the system….

Workers can also activate a “time machine” to look back…

Tracking visitors by country and area

The authorities can see where these new arrivals are from by analyzing their phone data (the information is all aggregated automatically, so no personal details can be gleaned)….

….And although some might baulk at the privacy implications (although no personal data is recorded, you and your provenance is essentially being logged as you move around the city), the authorities are very proud.

“In 2021, Venice celebrates its 1,600th anniversary,” says Bettini. “And we’ll be celebrating with technology.”

Read more….

 

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