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Garante fines the Municipality of Trento 50,000 euro over three AI street surveillance projects

Garante took fine action against Comune di Trento over Marvel, Protector and Precrisis research projects: AI analysis of street camera and microphone feeds, announced 11 January 2024. The amount is 50,000 euro. Status: confirmed.

The record

Key facts

Record ID
AIT-2024-0001
Status
Confirmed
Action type
Fine
Regime
GDPR
Authority
Garante per la protezione dei dati personali
Jurisdiction
Italy
Target
Comune di Trento, headquartered in Italy
Sector
Public sector
AI system
Marvel, Protector and Precrisis research projects: AI analysis of street camera and microphone feeds
Date announced
Date of decision
Amount
50,000 euro
Appeal
None recorded. No annulment recorded.
Last verified

In full

What happened, and why it matters

The first European fine against a public authority for an AI surveillance deployment, and the smallest amount in this tracker. Trento took part in three European research projects that pointed machine learning at street camera and microphone feeds to detect events such as raised voices or people in difficulty. The Garante found the anonymisation the city relied on was not anonymisation at all, that there was no adequate legal basis for the processing under Italian law, that the impact assessments were inadequate, and that information given to people in the monitored areas was insufficient. The city was fined 50,000 euro and ordered to delete what had been collected. The amount is not the point. The point is that a research project, run by a mid sized city, with academic partners and European funding, was still a live processing operation and was enforced as one. Under the AI Act the same deployment would sit in a different place again: real time remote biometric identification in public spaces is a prohibited practice under Article 5 with limited exceptions, and public authority deployers of high risk systems carry a fundamental rights impact assessment duty under Article 27. Municipalities are on the hook as deployers, and this record is the earliest evidence that authorities will act on it.

At a glance

The four things to take away

  • Fine of 50,000 euro against a municipality, announced 11 January 2024.
  • First European fine over an AI powered urban surveillance deployment.
  • Covered three EU funded research projects: Marvel, Protector and Precrisis.
  • The authority rejected the city's claim that the data had been anonymised.

Orders

What the authority required

  • delete the data gathered under the projects
  • stop the processing carried out under the projects

The law

Provisions this action rests on

Read the official text of Article 5 in the EU AI Act Explorer, consolidated with the Digital Omnibus applied.

How it moved

Timeline

  1. Garante adopts the decision

  2. Decision announced

Verification

Sources

Primary sources are the authority's own decision or press release, the Official Journal, or a court judgment. A record with no source is not published.

  1. Garante, provvedimento dell'11 gennaio 2024 (doc. web 9978728)Primary · 11 January 2024

Next

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Cite this record

Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, with attribution. The record ID AIT-2024-0001 is permanent and is never reused.

In a sentence
According to the GAGE EU AI Act Enforcement Tracker (as of 20 August 2026), garante fines the municipality of trento 50,000 euro over three ai street surveillance projects.
APA
GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education). (2026). Garante fines the Municipality of Trento 50,000 euro over three AI street surveillance projects. EU AI Act Enforcement Tracker. Retrieved 20 August 2026, from https://www.gage.academy/tools/eu-ai-act-enforcement-tracker/actions/AIT-2024-0001-garante-municipality-of-trento-ai-surveillance-fine
MLA
"Garante fines the Municipality of Trento 50,000 euro over three AI street surveillance projects." EU AI Act Enforcement Tracker, GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education), 20 August 2026, https://www.gage.academy/tools/eu-ai-act-enforcement-tracker/actions/AIT-2024-0001-garante-municipality-of-trento-ai-surveillance-fine.
Chicago
GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education). "Garante fines the Municipality of Trento 50,000 euro over three AI street surveillance projects." EU AI Act Enforcement Tracker. Last modified 20 August 2026. https://www.gage.academy/tools/eu-ai-act-enforcement-tracker/actions/AIT-2024-0001-garante-municipality-of-trento-ai-surveillance-fine.
Permalink
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