Helpful Places, a startup with a mission to increase transparency and communication related to urban tech, has launched the Digital Trust for Places and Routines (DTPR) project, described as an “open source communication standard” for cities to adopt.

Four cities — Boston; Washington, D.C.; Innisfil, a small Canadian city near Toronto; and the Angers-Loire metropolitan region in France — will participate in a monthslong study as they install signage on urban tech devices to better inform the community about the nature of the technology and why it’s there…

The hope, said Helpful Places officials, is the project will lead to a more comprehensive set of best practices for cities to follow as they deploy an increasing number of data-collecting technology into the public space…

Boston has been working with Helpful Places since 2020 when the city began deploying signage on traffic study areas across numerous neighborhoods.