What are the AI and cybersecurity practices within communities? The La Poste Group and the Banque des Territoires provide much information in their third edition “situational report on data, artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber security in territories“.
21% of communities reported implementing or testing the use of AI. More than one in two communities (51%), underlines the Data Publica Observatory survey, plans to use it soon. 36% said they want to pursue artificial intelligence in the next 12 months. 75% of regional councils are already involved in AI, followed by large metropolises (62%). However, 14% of municipalities with 3,500 to 10,000 inhabitants are also affected.
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Use of AI
Communities use AI primarily for administration and internal management (29%). Environmental applications are diverse: 12% for waste management, 12% for water management and 10% for better energy management. Additionally, 26% said they are testing artificial intelligence to improve user relationships. For example, the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux decided to train its own model, IssyGPT, capable of responding in natural language to various common questions.
Small communities ill-prepared for cyber attacks
Communities are increasingly affected when it comes to cyber security. “17% of communities have already had to deal with a cyber attack that resulted in their services being blocked or significant data breaches. Especially communities with less than 25,000 inhabitants are poorly prepared for attacks. However, cyber risk is clearly identified by 68% of communities, an increase of 4% in two years. However, this is only the case in 46% of municipalities with up to 3,500 inhabitants. Even more worryingly, the 9% of municipalities that do not identify this risk at all are exclusively among municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants”.
75% of communities with less than 25,000 inhabitants have a budget of less than €2,000 dedicated to their cyber security. Hardly every other person plans to increase this budget.
After a major attack, the average recovery time is two years. In addition, communities are not yet sufficiently aware of the NIS2 directive: barely one in two (47%) say they are aware of the cyber regulations applicable in their context. In the same way,the Reducing Digital Ecological Footprint (REEN) Act, which imposes a responsible digital strategy by 1ahem January 2025 is little known. Only 14% of municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and 14% of EPCIs (excluding metropolitan areas) have a responsible digital strategy. On the contrary, almost all large communities have it.
Finally, when it comes to the use of their data, a large majority of communities expect (73%) to improve service quality, followed by improved information and transparency to citizens (59%) and management and evaluation of public policies (56%). .