MyCoast: 500 complaints about arbitrariness on beaches – 14,000 citizens downloaded the application

In the two weeks since the launch of the MyCoast platform, through which citizens can check whether beaches comply with the legality of the concession terms, approximately 500 complaints.

According to the Ministry of Digital Governance, the application is already popular and has been downloaded by about 14,000 citizens. Residents of the Dodecanese come first in terms of the number of complaints, followed by the regions of Halkidiki and the Cyclades Islands. The top five complaints are from Corfu and Eastern Attica. There are also several complaints from residents of Corinthia and Piraeus.

Let us recall that the goal of “MyCoast” is to promote free access to the coast for all citizens, increase transparency in the distribution of coastal areas, as well as the organized use of state property. The MyCoast app is available free of charge for mobile devices such as phones and tablets.

In the next stage, after integrating the artificial intelligence tool, the legality will be automatically checked by information systems. The Ministry of Digital Governance and Minister Dimitris Papastergiou, in collaboration with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, want to add artificial intelligence to the application so that it automatically detects violations, and the state intervenes after that.

How will this be done? Both ministries are collaborating with the University of the Aegean, which is developing a mechanism for automatically detecting and identifying… umbrellas on the coastline from satellite images.

The mechanism will work as follows: the system will be able to effectively identify structures or objects in satellite images, having been “trained” on numerous images of the Greek territory. The high resolution of the images allows the use of special software that can accurately determine the area occupied by specific objects, such as umbrellas, and … compare the area occupied by the objects with the area corresponding to the lease agreement of each enterprise. Inconsistencies between these zones will be immediately monitored as suspicious violations.

The goal is to test it next summer in coastal areas of Greece to use the results for further development. It is expected that satellite coverage will gradually increase and, coupled with increased efficiency of the system as it constantly “learns” itself, could lead to complete automation of both routine and emergency inspections with numerous benefits. These include punishing those who break the law, setting a clear example for those who want to break it, and saving resources since teams will now be targeted.

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