How Smart Cities Are Shaping Our Lives
In the digital age, technology has become an integral part of our daily lives, transforming the way we work, communicate, and interact with the world around us. The rise of smart cities is a clear example of how technology is being used to create more efficient, sustainable, and connected urban environments. However, with these advancements come significant implications for the way we live and experience the world. From the impact on privacy and security to the potential for social exclusion, the digital world raises important questions about what it means to be a citizen in the 21st century. In this article, we will explore the implications of living in a digital world and how smart cities are shaping our urban environments and daily lives.
Smart City and IoT and their concerns
Governments around the world are looking to build smart cities, aiming to be at the forefront of technological innovation. Yet, despite their positive impact on addressing issues such as health, safety, equality, and food for citizens, it is equally important to understand the “limits” of these technologies — after all, citizens are the ones who ultimately decide what technology will be used to make a better city. It is easy to associate smart cities with technology applications, but most of the obstacles to smart cities do not come from the technology itself, but from the deeper issues of equality, civic empowerment, civic trust, privacy, and even the changing social contracts.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has become an essential component in urban development by collecting human behaviour and building the environment in real-time. With these data, we can improve our city’s operations and even propose new solutions or product designs to better meet the needs of human life. However, as cities become smarter, the environment we live in starts to be surrounded by “invisible technologies”, such as physical sensors and cameras that can be found on streets, campuses, subways, and even on everyone’s cell phones or computers, invisible behind free services.
The use of sensors in the IoT presents significant privacy challenges, especially since they can operate without users’ knowledge or consent. Obtaining consent from every user is often impractical, especially in public spaces such as parks. This raises questions about what types of data are being collected, how it will be used, and whether there are adequate data ethics in place to support it. Unfortunately, many people are unaware of the above questions, creating a sense of uncertainty and unease.
Real-World Smart City Projects
In many real-world cases, these senses of distrust have led to a backlash against large smart city projects. The most publicized case is the Sidewalk Toronto project, announced in 2015 by Sidewalk Lab. The project aimed to develop a sustainable smart city on Toronto’s eastern waterfront, providing affordable homes, high-tech jobs, self-driving systems, green grid infrastructure, and a community digital platform. However, the project faced significant privacy concern that third-party companies had access to personally identifiable data, contradicting Sidewalk Lab’s promise to de-identify data. LinkNYC is another example. It is a free public Wi-Fi kiosk that collects data for businesses. Although the project does not collect personally identifiable information, experts have found a “data re-identification risk,” where personal information can still be identified by cross-referencing two datasets.
To address this issue, the Digital Transparency and Privacy Research (DTPR) labelling system was developed by Sidewalk Lab, now run by Helpful Places, to create a standardised visual image that can be used in all public places where IoT devices are deployed. The labelling system breaks down urban technology into six elements, including purpose, technology, data type, data processing, access, and storage, making it easier for citizens to understand the privacy implications of these devices.
Although the DTPR labelling system is an important step in raising awareness of citizens’ privacy rights, it is not enough. To the general public, it is still not clear what the meaning behind a simple image is and what the sensitivity of the data is. More needs to be done to protect individual privacy, including creating citizen-centred smart services and products that prioritize privacy protection.
What Businesses and Government can do?
To reduce unnecessary privacy risks for users, governments and businesses should avoid collecting more information than necessary for the service or product itself. An example of this is the Array of Things (AoT), an “urban health tracker” in Chicago that monitors environmental conditions like air quality and traffic. AoT involves privacy experts from the planning stage and adheres to the data minimization principle by not collecting information outside the scope of the project and deliberately storing some information in an unclear way. Unused data is deleted once the project is completed to further ensure citizens’ data is not at risk.
Many cities now are also conducting privacy impact assessments, exploring the privacy impact on users when implementing new urban technologies. The City Verve project in Manchester is an excellent example of how to put citizens at the heart of smart city development. It has introduced a user experience team and through workshops and curatorial exhibitions, citizens are made a vital part of the design solution. Even though invisible technology is futuristic, it is the visible technology that makes people aware of themselves and creates more imagination. City Verve is also designing interactive installation art that portrays the city as perceived by IoT sensors. This helps to make people aware of how their environment is affected by technology and how data flows and is used in space. It also serves as an important medium for advocating privacy issues.
Conclusion
In conclusion, technology is already an indispensable part of our daily lives. Yet the advantages come with several sacrifices, especially, in our case of smart city, privacy and security issues. Governments and business cooperation are crucial to ensure adequate mechanisms for citizen participation, interaction, and communication, to raise awareness of privacy and protect individual rights in the digital world. After all, it is us who use the technologies that have the responsibility to find the balance between their benefits and limitations.
Self Reflection
The exploration of smart cities and their implications has been a thought-provoking and enlightening experience. The course has challenged the traditional concept of cities as mere physical entities and has expanded it to a more comprehensive view that includes technology, social, economic, and environmental aspects. Through exploring the themes of smart cities, I have gained a deeper understanding of the complex and multifaceted nature of urban life.
I have learned that smart cities are not just about implementing technology but are rather about creating an ecosystem where technology is used to enhance the lives of citizens, promote social inclusion, and foster sustainable development.
One of the most significant challenges of smart cities is the issue of privacy. The course has highlighted how privacy concerns can undermine public trust in smart city projects and ultimately lead to their failure. And during my research, I have learned that to overcome this challenge, governments and businesses must be transparent in their data collection and use practices and must involve citizens in the decision-making process.
Another crucial aspect of smart cities is the need for citizen participation. The importance of involving citizens in the planning and implementation of smart city projects to ensure that they meet the needs and preferences of the community. Citizen participation can also help to build trust and foster a sense of ownership and accountability among citizens. It really helped me to reshape my impression toward this topic. Alienation, as one of the most profound modern feelings created by the current social conduct, has discouraged most people to partake in politics. However, to pursue a better life, we must act. We should not stop to participate in the system due to its failure to let us join, rather, we should try to repair the system to make it more accessible.
The last one is the importance of ethical considerations in smart city projects. Technology without any human supervision and control can have unintended consequences and that it is essential to consider the ethical implications of implementing technology in urban spaces. For instance, AI algorithms used to manage traffic flows may inadvertently discriminate against certain communities, leading to social exclusion.
Overall, exploring the themes of smart cities has been a valuable experience that has broadened my perspective on urban life. I have gained a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities of using technology to enhance urban spaces and the importance of considering the social, economic, and environmental implications of smart city projects. Furthermore, the technology without control is meant to be detrimental. We hence all have the responsibility to understand and supervise the tools we are using. Much more urgent than ever, we have to assimilate the discussions of technology into the public realm. It is difficult, since the scientific language is naturally not suitable for political discussion. Yet it is exactly why, under the acceleration of urbanisation brought by technological advancements, we all need to be more proactive — before discussion we must first understand — to create a better future.
