LIVELINE
Live ICT Services Verified by EGNOS to find Lost Individuals in Emergency situations

The objective of the Liveline project is to develop a commercial, secure tracking service for vulnerable persons based on EGNOS/EDAS. A vulnerable person is a person whose unexpected absence creates a high level of concern and anxiety with his close relatives andcaretakers, as he may not be able to find his way back home and may become victim of accident or crime. Liveline focuses on vulnerable people in a family context, e.g. children and elderly people. Tracking a vulnerable person’s position saves critical search time, takes away unnecessary worries and reduces unnecessary police interventions.

The end goal of the project is a product that combines the security expected from a personal tracking system with the anticipated joy from a social web application.

Description

The Liveline project has a unique involvement with the human sciences sector. A Belgian research institute for family sciences, EHSAL-HIG, will contribute to the establishment of the user requirements by collecting opinions from parents and children. The entire process is accompanied by experts from various human sciences disciplines like pedagogy, psychology, sociology and law.

The engineering teams are committed to take on their social responsibility in society and to take into account the social, psychological, legal and ethical aspects related to position information of vulnerable people and people in general. In this way, particular European sensitivities related to privacy can be taken into account.

The technical innovation is the combination of EGNOS/EDAS for position determination with the latest security features applied to the position communication and storage. Security is included in the conceptual system design. Another technical feature of the service is the wide variety of technical hardware (mobile devices) that can be used. Moreover, the service can be requested from either fixed computers or from mobile devices.

Objectives

A first objective is to obtain a better understanding of the user and stakeholder requirements related to people-tracking systems, including the expectations, concerns, rights and obligations of the people being tracked and their relatives. In this way, Liveline wants to contribute to the public debate concerning location privacy. Introducing security in social location-based services and people-tracking systems will prevent abuse and create a positive awareness in society about location-based services. 

On the technical side, EGNOS and EDAS will enable accurate and reliable position determination. The determined user requirements will be the basis of the design of the ICT platform. Security including data protection at all levels will meet European legislation and will protect the interests of the user communities.

The end goal is both a commercial service and a commercial product. Families who need a ‘finder’ service will be prepared to pay for the service if it proves to be secure and reliable. As a secure and reliable software product, Liveline can also meet the requirements of private organisations that have a regular need to know their workforces’ locations.