Opinion
Smart planning for smart cities
By Teresa Scassa Apr. 9, 2018
Even on this smaller scale, we need to be asking hard questions about privacy, data ownership and data sovereignty. There needs to be a plan, and it should be a plan built around the public interest rather than private profit.
Building a ‘smart city’ sounds like a good idea, but what lies behind a city’s IQ? Smart cities involve innumerable sensors of all kinds, gathering data in real-time throughout the city. The Hill Times file photograph
Building a ‘smart city’ sounds like a good idea, but what lies behind a city’s IQ? Smart cities involve innumerable sensors of all kinds, gathering data in real-time throughout the city. Together, these sensors harvest data about every aspect of urban life, including temperature, air quality, traffic flows, and infrastructure issues. Some of the most valuable smart city data is about how individuals live, move, and interact within the city. Data about individuals is captured by security and traffic cameras, by transit cards, by sensors measuring their consumption or use of utilities and resources, and increasingly by sensors carried by individuals themselves in the form of mobile phones and apps.
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