Who will be smart in a smart city?
CC Attribution - ShareAlike 3.0 Germany:
You are free to use, adapt and copy, distribute and transmit the work or content in adapted or unchanged form for any legal purpose as long as the work is attributed to the author in the manner specified by the author or licensor and the work or content is shared also in adapted form only under the conditions of this
Manske, Julia
Blum-Dumontet, Eva
With a growing interest in cities that respond and adapt to changing environments and citizen's demands - often referred to as Smart Cities - we see new challenges arising for free and open societies. Smart cities promise to create the perfect urban space, a more efficient, greener and secure environment. But at what cost? In this talk we would like to explore the current risks with smart cities and discuss technical and legal steps that are needed to protect our rights.
 I would like to welcome Julia Manske from the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, where she works in the Open Data and Privacy Programme. And Eva Blum-Dumonté, she's a research officer at Privacy International, where she investigates the surveillance industry. Welcome and have fun with the talk. Think about a city where trains are always on time and never crowded. A city where traffic jams are a foreign concept. Think about a zero-waste city where everything is recycled, where it means a lot to you if you're rubbish in the wrong place. Think about a city where you would only pay for the electricity you use. Think about a city where you can alert civil servants about what's need-fixing in your streets and you can monitor them in real time to make sure they get the job done. Think about a city where citizens aren't passively waiting for the next elections to make their voices heard but are full-fledged actors who decide what's happening in their cities using their smartphones. Think about a city where internet access is available in every street and where even the most deprived among us can access it for free. Think about a city where elderly citizens can safely remain in their homes thanks to a system that alerts medical authorities if they show signs of blood drops or a heart attack. Think about a city where crime is prevented before it happens. Welcome to the city that companies like IBM, Cisco, Oracle, Hitachi, Google and Microsoft are trying to sell your local governments. You will notice some of them are here. Anyhow. So we've all heard the term smart cities but what we mean by that is the use of technology and data collection to improve the city and provide tailored services for the needs of citizens. Now smart cities have been focusing majorly on four aspects transport, health, energy and local governance. There are various ways of collecting data but really door to emerging trends. One is of course the use of your smartphones. The other one is sensors. And actually it's heard you say that we are moving on to an area of sensors where they are placed all over the city but also in your homes and most definitely in your smartphones. So IBM actually has a helpful analogy. They compare it to the nervous system where the sensors are actually the nerves but while nerves relay information to the brain unfortunately and that's definitely one of the major concern I'd like to already point to in terms of smart cities is that it's not entirely clear what the brain is in a smart city. Now every day we produce 2.5 quintillion bytes of data which is an enormous quantity of information and data that can be collected about us. We are actually entering an internet of the era where the objects you carry like your watch or the objects in your house like your fridge or your children's toys or themselves equipped with sensors and connected to the internet and therefore relaying your data and information that can be accessed by private companies and governments. Now Europe is the top continent in terms of smart cities and I live in London which is really at the forefront of smart cities initiative. So just to give you an idea of what it means to live in a smart city and this is nothing new this is something that has been going on for the past almost 15 years now. When you take public transport be it the underground or buses you need an oyster card. An oyster card is equipped with a circuit which means that every time you enter public transport or every time you leave you have to swipe it and this data about where you're going from and where you're going to is collected by transport for London again is accessible by the government. But it's not just public transport obviously that are being monitored it's also just cars as well when you're driving through London you need to pay congestion charge so in order for that charge to be paid the city of London has called IBM to set up a system where cars are constantly monitored based on their number plates. Now as I said this has been going on for maybe like up to 15 years and smart cities order they already exist and they order to stay but today we want to tell you about the risk of smart cities to maybe hope and see how we can mitigate them as well. I've spoken about Europe but it's in London but it's definitely not only limited Europe actually it's really a growing trend in transforming countries as well with China and DDR are developing 300 smart city pilots because the more mega cities are popping up the more the urbanization trend leads to smart city developments. So we are very aware of the fact that there are of course a lot of bottom up initiatives as well that are popping up now in the discourse about smart cities and there are a lot of interesting civic hack projects for instance and open data projects but we really want to focus on this very much technocratic top-down approach that we see promoted by the big tech players and we want to focus on the questions related to power and control and the challenges that we see for open and free societies especially in the context of privacy and surveillance. And why do we want to have this conversation because we have the feeling that right now this fight about smart cities is very much a fight fought by urban planners who are very much fighting against the big tech companies and then the tech companies on the other side and we believe that actually the crowd here at the Republic should also be engaged in these discussions. So let's start with the question of who is in control and in power of smart cities and who actually benefits from smart cities. So Eva already explained all the players and there are more who are interested in really pushing and promoting the idea of a smart city but there are also cloud service providers, application platforms, device manufacturers, data analysts or some of these companies of course they provide all of these services at the same time. And there is this really interesting book by a researcher called Anthony Townsend written in 2013 where he is analyzing the advent of the smart city showing that around the year of 2008 the notion and the project and the whole enthusiasm behind smart cities increased. And this is for two reasons. First of all because for the first time more people were living in urban areas than in rural areas so we were facing more and more challenges in the context of urbanization like poverty, traffic and environmental issues. But at the same time 2008 and all of you know it was also the year of the financial crisis. So a lot of the big IT players that weren't able to sell their services and solutions to other enterprises anymore because they ran out of money or had a lot of budget cuts. So of course these companies were looking for new markets and trying to sell their services that were actually designed for enterprises. And so indeed this is the estimated market by 2020 for smart city technology and it's estimated to be at around $408 billion. And we're just trying to explain that to show you how much the discourse was driven by the private sector and actually shaped by these providers. And also promoting the idea that technology and data driven approaches are needed for cities to become successful or efficient. And I want to look a bit closer now at four issues why we think that is problematic. So first of all the problem with cities most often is that they really lack resources. And this is especially the case in developing countries or in the global south. And Eva already mentioned that especially in China or India cities are now getting very engaged in the smart city projects. But many times there's just no budget. So they are very much forced into private public partnerships because they couldn't afford it with public money. And so now I mean those are two cities that have a lot of budget but here we see the announcement from New York where the city of New York is cooperating with Microsoft setting up this new domain awareness system which is a really elaborated law enforcement system using data from surveillance cameras using data from automated license plates rates. And those are long term contracts where Microsoft is getting engaged with the city. And here on the other side we have the city of Hamburg signing a memorandum of understanding for the port in Hamburg to make it more efficient and use transport data, logistic data, etc. So the problem here is just that these contracts they are really long term contracts that bind the cities to these special providers. But the other thing and this I find even more striking is that one of the problems is that well, generally in the government, but especially in the local government you have a lack of capacity and knowledge to assess what kind of technologies actually needed to tackle certain problems on the city level. So this is from a blog post from Cisco which I find kind of funny because it's the trash talking what is your city's digital transformation IQ so this notion that your city needs to have a certain IQ to be innovative and that probably trash or smart trash systems are the right answers. And while I agree that sometimes trash is an issue, probably we should ask the question whether this is always the biggest problem a city is facing. So here we really have the providers shaping the agenda and also providing the problem and providing the technology at the same time while people on the government level cannot really act as sort of smart clients assessing the problems and then assessing the suitable solution. The other problem that we are seeing is that in a smart city context data government and data management becomes really, really important. And here we have the fascinating example of Rio. So Rio applied for the World Cup and Olympics and when it was finally announced that both of these events will take place in Rio or will take place in Brazil and in Rio. Of course they were realizing that there are a lot of issues and problems the city is facing. So ranging from poverty over traffic jams over natural disasters especially in the favela regions. So the mayor of Rio turned to IBM and asked for a technical solution and what he got was this control room. And I think it's a very impressive example of showing the idea behind the smart city. So you have like the centralized system of data of all different sectors. So here you have data of more than 30 agencies coming in together in real time. You have the city workers having the screens and the real time maps using sensors and all kinds of other data and really controlling or at least this notion of being able to control the city and probably even the citizens. Because what's really important in the smart city is that you have these sectors and the data flows in between the sectors. So ideally the energy system knows what the transport system is doing etc. But this poses certain questions because if you have this kind of centralized proprietary system as I said earlier you're buying to certain contracts. You need one service provider and hardware provider providing this kind of control rooms. This of course neglects any kind of bottom up approaches but also for example the idea of sharing data openly or of engaging with startups or other more innovative approaches but you're really forced into the systems. The other question, so I already talked about the lack of resources and capacity, the data management question. The third one is the one about data ownership. And I think this is a very crucial one and Eva will touch upon that in a second as well. So the whole idea of who's actually owning the data for a long time has been neglected. And we see that now in contracts between the public sector and the private sector that many people have not really thought about this question and now the public sector wants to have access to the data or maybe even wants to make it openly available but they can't because the data belongs to the private sector. And this is an issue for several reasons. One, because this data could be made freely available more for if it's non-personal data, more for for example the use of citizens as part of open data projects. But the other one is also and this is from a quote from a white paper of the Department for Business and Innovation Skills in the UK where they are really promoting this idea of selling data that is generated in a smart city context for advertisement purposes. So the idea of having this perfectly tailored advertisement for people commuting in the city for instance. And if you have approaches like this you can already imagine the next step and that is probably that this data is used by the big data brokers who are selling the data and they can sell them to insurance companies, to the banking industry etc. So here you can imagine well if the data is maybe allowing tailored advertisement for people commuting to a bar this kind of data will also be used to know okay how often does a person go to a bar etc. And I don't know if you want this. And now the last point that I want to make about power and control I don't know I think most of you know this building or this city and actually it was Walt Disney who had this really really elaborated idea of the smart city. So he had a very technocratic approach it was called Epcot which the city was called Epcot his original idea which is called which meant experimental prototyping community of tomorrow and here he really wanted to have technology in place but more importantly he also had the idea that you don't need any local government anymore but you have the private company so in that case Walt Disney and the corporate partners managing the city. So in terms of democracy and free and open societies I think there is a lot of reason to worry about this and we heard about the problems that occur when you just have technology and algorithms ruling and designing a community we heard about this yesterday with Kate Crawford but also today there were great talks explaining why it's really really important that we do not just have algorithms and data sort of designing the society but that we need transparency about the algorithms that are used about potential issues of exclusion and biases in the data because otherwise we cannot hold our government or whoever controls us to account. So I'll give over to Eva again to talk a bit more about the issue of algorithms and surveillance in the smart city concept. So I'd like actually to talk a little more about privacy because actually one thing you noticed when you hear people from local governments and companies that are selling smart cities what I would call the smart city evangelist is that they complain often about the issues around privacy and data protection and how data protection laws get in the way of progress and how we need data to save children's lives and basically privacy is just getting in the way really. So before we move on to from the right to privacy and before we dismiss it as a right from the old world I'd just like you to take a minute and think about what it means to live in a smart city. Basically what it means to live in the world we live in now where the government knows when you're going to bed, when you wake up in the morning, if you take a shower or a bath, when you're leaving your house where you're going to, living in a world where the governments use your social media posts to assess whether you're happy with the service they're providing. Now data protection historically has always been tied to the issue of consents. When you're using Facebook or Twitter you have to tick a box saying you consents to your data being used and if you don't consent if you're not happy with it you just don't use the services that's why I'm not on Facebook for example. Now obviously in a smart city the issue of consent disappears. When the moment you step out in the street or the moment you drive through a city your data is being used and being searched out from your phone you don't get to consent to it. Now I think one interesting example is actually the smart beans in London. So what were the smart beans? Basically they were just beans with broadcasting advertisements. Now the trick is that they were equipped with sensors that were getting data from your phone when you pass by and based on the data they were getting which was essentially your MAC address they would target the advertisement for you. Now when people weren't aware of this happening at all they just thought it was random advertisement they didn't realise it was targeted advertisement. When people found out it goes like a proper outcry in London and it was a newspaper that exposed this and people demanded the project to stop and eventually it was stopped. Now I think one of the things that was interesting is the CEO of Renew the startup that had proposed the smart bean says I don't see what the problem is London is already the most developed city in the world why do people suddenly care about this? I think it shows one thing when people get angry you can still get a say as to what data are being intercepted so it's never too late even if you're in the most developed city in the world. Now smart cities isn't just about the constant data collection we've talked about Rio already and I think it's a good example to show the other side of the problem which is the centralisation of data. In Rio you get data from 30 companies from sensors from CCTV all in one place and all used to create like real time maps and graph to predict and counteract crimes or traffic jams and natural disasters. Now I think this was a really interesting quote from the mayor of Rio who says the operation centres allows us to have people looking into every corner of the city 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So I think that really shows the extent of the problem. Now Rio is not the exception and actually to be fair it is going to become the norm if smart cities keep on as they are. Another example is the city of Singapore where there is an unprecedented project currently being set laid out where an undetermined number of sensors and cameras are being placed all over the city to monitor everything from cleanliness of public spaces to density of crowd and precise movement of every locally registered vehicle. Now all this data is filled into one programme called virtual Singapore and what it means is that the government will be able to run experiments for example to see how people would react to an explosion or how infectious disease would spread. Now let's say you find with this, let's say you find with government's surveillance because after all you've elected the government, you've chosen it, maybe you trust them. There's still an issue that remains to be solved which is the problem of cybersecurity. Let's think for a moment what have been the big headlines lately. Telecommunications companies like Talk Talk have been hacked and all their data have been leaked. Everyone has heard about the Ashley Madison hack. Actually even governments are being hacked. The Turkish governments, the Filipino government, the Mexico governments have been victim of hacking and have seen their data leaks. So how can we trust, how can we possibly trust, basemakers, sensors, everything that we rely on in our day to day lives that we let in intimacy when actually we are not even capable of securing the most basic system. Now this is actually an example of the Wi-Fi of London. The Wi-Fi of London is actually specifically in the city of London which is the financial district. You would think that in the financial district where all the banks and all the major headquarters of company are concentrated, surely you would think they would manage to have a secure network. Now we've actually made research on this. We've been studying the networks. The network is completely insecure. If you're connecting onto the London Wi-Fi, you can very easily intercept communication and internet traffic from other people connected to this Wi-Fi. And let's just think about what it means actually to have sensors everywhere. When you think about like sensors for example that are placed to recognize if there's been gunshots for example. So those sensors are normally designed to intercept sounds. Well, what if someone maliciously get in the way and use them to intercept conversations that are happening in streets for example. Now I'd like to conclude on the issue of forced participation in smart cities. Because I think there is something to keep in mind is that when the right to privacy was going in 1890s in the US by Brandeis and Warren, it was defined as the right to be left alone. And this is exactly what we're losing in a smart city. We are losing the right to be left alone. Because we are constantly as I said like your data could be constantly being used but also more and more we see projects being developed where your government is expecting you to use apps for example to report graffitis or holes in the road. So if you don't want to do that, if you want to stay away from those apps for example, the services you get from the city are just not as good. You're being penalized for not participating. So by essence you are being constantly requested, expected to participate. The reason there is a picture of World Disney on the screen is to go back to this idea of this smart city that World Disney had envisioned. Because there was a flip side to it is that yes it was the most efficient city possibly using technology for everything from like taking your kids to school from where you work, everything you do would be facilitated by technology. Now the flip side to it is that it was a city where you couldn't retire. The moment you were retired you would be kicked out of the city because the city expected you to be efficient. And that's what I wanted to ask yourself as well. Do we want to live in a city where we are constantly forced to be efficient? And now just to give like a more positive outlook at the end. So reclaiming the free and open city. So we talked a lot about Rio and the control room and the partnership between IBM and the government in Rio. This is not so positive and unfortunately a bit blurry but this is from this March and probably you've heard about all the protests going on in Brazil at the moment and this is actually in Rio. So here you can see that well Rio might be a smart city or whatever however you want to define a smart city but we see that like the biggest issues and challenges that we are facing at the moment like poverty, like social injustice, like corruption or public education. Like probably there aren't really technological fixes to that. But of course we need human interaction and democracy and collective human intelligence in a way. And we definitely need to involve cities, day to day cities, everyday citizens in these solutions that are developed. And we heard this yesterday from Richard Zenit where he explained well the best cities, those are not the cities that are very efficient but the cities that are very dynamic and that have a lot of interaction between communities. So this another example from Latin America is the city of Medellin. In Medellin maybe you've heard about the city because it had a lot of problems with the drug war and a lot of issues with the slum areas in these mountain regions. And the solution that they found to these issues had nothing to do with an app or a smartphone but what they did is that they had publicly funded sports facilities for people in the slums and people in the central area and they built these cable cars connecting the slums with the center of the city. So in the end it was the interaction of these different communities coming together that made the city a better place. Now if I already said that we know that the idea of smart city and technology driving these developments is nothing that we are going to stop. This is just happening at the moment but we really see an urge to shape these developments and to get engaged in the debates and if there are technological solutions implemented which is not necessarily a bad thing we need to make it more transparent and open. We need to think about where we can work with open source technologies and especially we need to think about policies and regulations on who owns the data and what will be done with the data. Because in the end there will be always inequalities in a society and there will be always inequalities in the city. But this needs to be made transparent and we should not believe that just because we use data or algorithms we will find the best solution but we need to be able to hold companies and the governments using this kind of data to account. And well if some people say that now the internet of things and this will be like the underlying system of any smart city will be like electricity then we should certainly think about the question who is in charge of this new infrastructure and who is in control and does it really serve free and open societies. And we hope you get engaged in the discussion about these issues. And thanks a lot. Thank you.
 I would like to welcome Julia Manske from the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, where she works  in the Open Data and Privacy Programme.  And Eva Blum-Dumonté, she's a research officer at Privacy International, where she investigates  the surveillance industry.  Welcome and have fun with the talk.  Think about a city where trains are always on time and never crowded.  A city where traffic jams are a foreign concept.  Think about a zero-waste city where everything is recycled, where it means a lot to you if  you're rubbish in the wrong place.  Think about a city where you would only pay for the electricity you use.  Think about a city where you can alert civil servants about what's need-fixing in your  streets and you can monitor them in real time to make sure they get the job done.  Think about a city where citizens aren't passively waiting for the next elections to make their  voices heard but are full-fledged actors who decide what's happening in their cities using  their smartphones.  Think about a city where internet access is available in every street and where even the  most deprived among us can access it for free.  Think about a city where elderly citizens can safely remain in their homes thanks to a system  that alerts medical authorities if they show signs of blood drops or a heart attack.  Think about a city where crime is prevented before it happens.  Welcome to the city that companies like IBM, Cisco, Oracle, Hitachi, Google and Microsoft  are trying to sell your local governments.  You will notice some of them are here.  Anyhow.  So we've all heard the term smart cities but what we mean by that is the use of technology  and data collection to improve the city and provide tailored services for the needs of  citizens.  Now smart cities have been focusing majorly on four aspects transport, health, energy  and local governance.  There are various ways of collecting data but really door to emerging trends.  One is of course the use of your smartphones.  The other one is sensors.  And actually it's heard you say that we are moving on to an area of sensors where they  are placed all over the city but also in your homes and most definitely in your smartphones.  So IBM actually has a helpful analogy.  They compare it to the nervous system where the sensors are actually the nerves but while  nerves relay information to the brain unfortunately and that's definitely one of the major concern  I'd like to already point to in terms of smart cities is that it's not entirely clear  what the brain is in a smart city.  Now every day we produce 2.5 quintillion bytes of data which is an enormous quantity  of information and data that can be collected about us.  We are actually entering an internet of the era where the objects you carry like your  watch or the objects in your house like your fridge or your children's toys or themselves  equipped with sensors and connected to the internet and therefore relaying your data  and information that can be accessed by private companies and governments.  Now Europe is the top continent in terms of smart cities and I live in London which is  really at the forefront of smart cities initiative.  So just to give you an idea of what it means to live in a smart city and this is nothing  new this is something that has been going on for the past almost 15 years now.  When you take public transport be it the underground or buses you need an oyster card.  An oyster card is equipped with a circuit which means that every time you enter public  transport or every time you leave you have to swipe it and this data about where you're  going from and where you're going to is collected by transport for London again is accessible  by the government.  But it's not just public transport obviously that are being monitored it's also just cars  as well when you're driving through London you need to pay congestion charge so in order  for that charge to be paid the city of London has called IBM to set up a system where cars  are constantly monitored based on their number plates.  Now as I said this has been going on for maybe like up to 15 years and smart cities order  they already exist and they order to stay but today we want to tell you about the risk  of smart cities to maybe hope and see how we can mitigate them as well.  I've spoken about Europe but it's in London but it's definitely not only limited Europe  actually it's really a growing trend in transforming countries as well with China and DDR are  developing 300 smart city pilots because the more mega cities are popping up the more the  urbanization trend leads to smart city developments.  So we are very aware of the fact that there are of course a lot of bottom up initiatives  as well that are popping up now in the discourse about smart cities and there are a lot of interesting  civic hack projects for instance and open data projects but we really want to focus on  this very much technocratic top-down approach that we see promoted by the big tech players  and we want to focus on the questions related to power and control and the challenges that  we see for open and free societies especially in the context of privacy and surveillance.  And why do we want to have this conversation because we have the feeling that right now  this fight about smart cities is very much a fight fought by urban planners who are very  much fighting against the big tech companies and then the tech companies on the other side  and we believe that actually the crowd here at the Republic should also be engaged in  these discussions.  So let's start with the question of who is in control and in power of smart cities and  who actually benefits from smart cities.  So Eva already explained all the players and there are more who are interested in really  pushing and promoting the idea of a smart city but there are also cloud service providers,  application platforms, device manufacturers, data analysts or some of these companies of  course they provide all of these services at the same time.  And there is this really interesting book by a researcher called Anthony Townsend written  in 2013 where he is analyzing the advent of the smart city showing that around the year  of 2008 the notion and the project and the whole enthusiasm behind smart cities increased.  And this is for two reasons.  First of all because for the first time more people were living in urban areas than in  rural areas so we were facing more and more challenges in the context of urbanization  like poverty, traffic and environmental issues.  But at the same time 2008 and all of you know it was also the year of the financial crisis.  So a lot of the big IT players that weren't able to sell their services and solutions  to other enterprises anymore because they ran out of money or had a lot of budget cuts.  So of course these companies were looking for new markets and trying to sell their services  that were actually designed for enterprises.  And so indeed this is the estimated market by 2020 for smart city technology and it's  estimated to be at around $408 billion.  And we're just trying to explain that to show you how much the discourse was driven by the  private sector and actually shaped by these providers.  And also promoting the idea that technology and data driven approaches are needed for  cities to become successful or efficient.  And I want to look a bit closer now at four issues why we think that is problematic.  So first of all the problem with cities most often is that they really lack resources.  And this is especially the case in developing countries or in the global south.  And Eva already mentioned that especially in China or India cities are now getting very  engaged in the smart city projects.  But many times there's just no budget.  So they are very much forced into private public partnerships because they couldn't  afford it with public money.  And so now I mean those are two cities that have a lot of budget but here we see the announcement  from New York where the city of New York is cooperating with Microsoft setting up this  new domain awareness system which is a really elaborated law enforcement system using data  from surveillance cameras using data from automated license plates rates.  And those are long term contracts where Microsoft is getting engaged with the city.  And here on the other side we have the city of Hamburg signing a memorandum of understanding  for the port in Hamburg to make it more efficient and use transport data, logistic data, etc.  So the problem here is just that these contracts they are really long term contracts that bind  the cities to these special providers.  But the other thing and this I find even more striking is that one of the problems is that  well, generally in the government, but especially in the local government you have a lack of  capacity and knowledge to assess what kind of technologies actually needed to tackle  certain problems on the city level.  So this is from a blog post from Cisco which I find kind of funny because it's the trash  talking what is your city's digital transformation IQ so this notion that your city needs to  have a certain IQ to be innovative and that probably trash or smart trash systems are  the right answers.  And while I agree that sometimes trash is an issue, probably we should ask the question  whether this is always the biggest problem a city is facing.  So here we really have the providers shaping the agenda and also providing the problem  and providing the technology at the same time while people on the government level cannot  really act as sort of smart clients assessing the problems and then assessing the suitable  solution.  The other problem that we are seeing is that in a smart city context data government and  data management becomes really, really important.  And here we have the fascinating example of Rio.  So Rio applied for the World Cup and Olympics and when it was finally announced that both  of these events will take place in Rio or will take place in Brazil and in Rio.  Of course they were realizing that there are a lot of issues and problems the city is facing.  So ranging from poverty over traffic jams over natural disasters especially in the favela  regions.  So the mayor of Rio turned to IBM and asked for a technical solution and what he got was  this control room.  And I think it's a very impressive example of showing the idea behind the smart city.  So you have like the centralized system of data of all different sectors.  So here you have data of more than 30 agencies coming in together in real time.  You have the city workers having the screens and the real time maps using sensors and all  kinds of other data and really controlling or at least this notion of being able to control  the city and probably even the citizens.  Because what's really important in the smart city is that you have these sectors and the  data flows in between the sectors.  So ideally the energy system knows what the transport system is doing etc.  But this poses certain questions because if you have this kind of centralized proprietary  system as I said earlier you're buying to certain contracts.  You need one service provider and hardware provider providing this kind of control rooms.  This of course neglects any kind of bottom up approaches but also for example the idea  of sharing data openly or of engaging with startups or other more innovative approaches  but you're really forced into the systems.  The other question, so I already talked about the lack of resources and capacity, the data  management question.  The third one is the one about data ownership.  And I think this is a very crucial one and Eva will touch upon that in a second as well.  So the whole idea of who's actually owning the data for a long time has been neglected.  And we see that now in contracts between the public sector and the private sector that  many people have not really thought about this question and now the public sector wants  to have access to the data or maybe even wants to make it openly available but they can't  because the data belongs to the private sector.  And this is an issue for several reasons.  One, because this data could be made freely available more for if it's non-personal data,  more for for example the use of citizens as part of open data projects.  But the other one is also and this is from a quote from a white paper of the Department  for Business and Innovation Skills in the UK where they are really promoting this idea  of selling data that is generated in a smart city context for advertisement purposes.  So the idea of having this perfectly tailored advertisement for people commuting in the city  for instance.  And if you have approaches like this you can already imagine the next step and that is  probably that this data is used by the big data brokers who are selling the data and they  can sell them to insurance companies, to the banking industry etc.  So here you can imagine well if the data is maybe allowing tailored advertisement for  people commuting to a bar this kind of data will also be used to know okay how often does  a person go to a bar etc.  And I don't know if you want this.  And now the last point that I want to make about power and control I don't know I think  most of you know this building or this city and actually it was Walt Disney who had this  really really elaborated idea of the smart city.  So he had a very technocratic approach it was called Epcot which the city was called  Epcot his original idea which is called which meant experimental prototyping community of  tomorrow and here he really wanted to have technology in place but more importantly he  also had the idea that you don't need any local government anymore but you have the  private company so in that case Walt Disney and the corporate partners managing the city.  So in terms of democracy and free and open societies I think there is a lot of reason  to worry about this and we heard about the problems that occur when you just have technology  and algorithms ruling and designing a community we heard about this yesterday with Kate Crawford  but also today there were great talks explaining why it's really really important that we do  not just have algorithms and data sort of designing the society but that we need transparency  about the algorithms that are used about potential issues of exclusion and biases in the data  because otherwise we cannot hold our government or whoever controls us to account.  So I'll give over to Eva again to talk a bit more about the issue of algorithms and surveillance  in the smart city concept.  So I'd like actually to talk a little more about privacy because actually one thing you  noticed when you hear people from local governments and companies that are selling smart cities  what I would call the smart city evangelist is that they complain often about the issues  around privacy and data protection and how data protection laws get in the way of progress  and how we need data to save children's lives and basically privacy is just getting in the  way really.  So before we move on to from the right to privacy and before we dismiss it as a right  from the old world I'd just like you to take a minute and think about what it means to  live in a smart city.  Basically what it means to live in the world we live in now where the government knows  when you're going to bed, when you wake up in the morning, if you take a shower or a  bath, when you're leaving your house where you're going to, living in a world where the  governments use your social media posts to assess whether you're happy with the service  they're providing.  Now data protection historically has always been tied to the issue of consents.  When you're using Facebook or Twitter you have to tick a box saying you consents to  your data being used and if you don't consent if you're not happy with it you just don't  use the services that's why I'm not on Facebook for example.  Now obviously in a smart city the issue of consent disappears.  When the moment you step out in the street or the moment you drive through a city your  data is being used and being searched out from your phone you don't get to consent to it.  Now I think one interesting example is actually the smart beans in London.  So what were the smart beans?  Basically they were just beans with broadcasting advertisements.  Now the trick is that they were equipped with sensors that were getting data from your phone  when you pass by and based on the data they were getting which was essentially your MAC  address they would target the advertisement for you.  Now when people weren't aware of this happening at all they just thought it was random advertisement  they didn't realise it was targeted advertisement.  When people found out it goes like a proper outcry in London and it was a newspaper that  exposed this and people demanded the project to stop and eventually it was stopped.  Now I think one of the things that was interesting is the CEO of Renew the startup that had proposed  the smart bean says I don't see what the problem is London is already the most developed city  in the world why do people suddenly care about this?  I think it shows one thing when people get angry you can still get a say as to what data  are being intercepted so it's never too late even if you're in the most developed city  in the world.  Now smart cities isn't just about the constant data collection we've talked about Rio already  and I think it's a good example to show the other side of the problem which is the centralisation  of data.  In Rio you get data from 30 companies from sensors from CCTV all in one place and all  used to create like real time maps and graph to predict and counteract crimes or traffic  jams and natural disasters.  Now I think this was a really interesting quote from the mayor of Rio who says the operation  centres allows us to have people looking into every corner of the city 24 hours a day, 7  days a week.  So I think that really shows the extent of the problem.  Now Rio is not the exception and actually to be fair it is going to become the norm  if smart cities keep on as they are.  Another example is the city of Singapore where there is an unprecedented project currently  being set laid out where an undetermined number of sensors and cameras are being placed all  over the city to monitor everything from cleanliness of public spaces to density of crowd and precise  movement of every locally registered vehicle.  Now all this data is filled into one programme called virtual Singapore and what it means  is that the government will be able to run experiments for example to see how people  would react to an explosion or how infectious disease would spread.  Now let's say you find with this, let's say you find with government's surveillance because  after all you've elected the government, you've chosen it, maybe you trust them.  There's still an issue that remains to be solved which is the problem of cybersecurity.  Let's think for a moment what have been the big headlines lately.  Telecommunications companies like Talk Talk have been hacked and all their data have been  leaked.  Everyone has heard about the Ashley Madison hack.  Actually even governments are being hacked.  The Turkish governments, the Filipino government, the Mexico governments have been victim of  hacking and have seen their data leaks.  So how can we trust, how can we possibly trust, basemakers, sensors, everything that we rely  on in our day to day lives that we let in intimacy when actually we are not even capable  of securing the most basic system.  Now this is actually an example of the Wi-Fi of London.  The Wi-Fi of London is actually specifically in the city of London which is the financial  district.  You would think that in the financial district where all the banks and all the major headquarters  of company are concentrated, surely you would think they would manage to have a secure network.  Now we've actually made research on this.  We've been studying the networks.  The network is completely insecure.  If you're connecting onto the London Wi-Fi, you can very easily intercept communication  and internet traffic from other people connected to this Wi-Fi.  And let's just think about what it means actually to have sensors everywhere.  When you think about like sensors for example that are placed to recognize if there's been  gunshots for example.  So those sensors are normally designed to intercept sounds.  Well, what if someone maliciously get in the way and use them to intercept conversations  that are happening in streets for example.  Now I'd like to conclude on the issue of forced participation in smart cities.  Because I think there is something to keep in mind is that when the right to privacy  was going in 1890s in the US by Brandeis and Warren, it was defined as the right to be  left alone.  And this is exactly what we're losing in a smart city.  We are losing the right to be left alone.  Because we are constantly as I said like your data could be constantly being used but also  more and more we see projects being developed where your government is expecting you to  use apps for example to report graffitis or holes in the road.  So if you don't want to do that, if you want to stay away from those apps for example,  the services you get from the city are just not as good.  You're being penalized for not participating.  So by essence you are being constantly requested, expected to participate.  The reason there is a picture of World Disney on the screen is to go back to this idea of  this smart city that World Disney had envisioned.  Because there was a flip side to it is that yes it was the most efficient city possibly  using technology for everything from like taking your kids to school from where you  work, everything you do would be facilitated by technology.  Now the flip side to it is that it was a city where you couldn't retire.  The moment you were retired you would be kicked out of the city because the city expected  you to be efficient.  And that's what I wanted to ask yourself as well.  Do we want to live in a city where we are constantly forced to be efficient?  And now just to give like a more positive outlook at the end.  So reclaiming the free and open city.  So we talked a lot about Rio and the control room and the partnership between IBM and the  government in Rio.  This is not so positive and unfortunately a bit blurry but this is from this March and  probably you've heard about all the protests going on in Brazil at the moment and this  is actually in Rio.  So here you can see that well Rio might be a smart city or whatever however you want to  define a smart city but we see that like the biggest issues and challenges that we are  facing at the moment like poverty, like social injustice, like corruption or public education.  Like probably there aren't really technological fixes to that.  But of course we need human interaction and democracy and collective human intelligence  in a way.  And we definitely need to involve cities, day to day cities, everyday citizens in these  solutions that are developed.  And we heard this yesterday from Richard Zenit where he explained well the best cities,  those are not the cities that are very efficient but the cities that are very dynamic and that  have a lot of interaction between communities.  So this another example from Latin America is the city of Medellin.  In Medellin maybe you've heard about the city because it had a lot of problems with the  drug war and a lot of issues with the slum areas in these mountain regions.  And the solution that they found to these issues had nothing to do with an app or a  smartphone but what they did is that they had publicly funded sports facilities for  people in the slums and people in the central area and they built these cable cars connecting  the slums with the center of the city.  So in the end it was the interaction of these different communities coming together that  made the city a better place.  Now if I already said that we know that the idea of smart city and technology driving  these developments is nothing that we are going to stop.  This is just happening at the moment but we really see an urge to shape these developments  and to get engaged in the debates and if there are technological solutions implemented which  is not necessarily a bad thing we need to make it more transparent and open.  We need to think about where we can work with open source technologies and especially we  need to think about policies and regulations on who owns the data and what will be done  with the data.  Because in the end there will be always inequalities in a society and there will be always inequalities  in the city.  But this needs to be made transparent and we should not believe that just because we  use data or algorithms we will find the best solution but we need to be able to hold companies  and the governments using this kind of data to account.  And well if some people say that now the internet of things and this will be like the underlying  system of any smart city will be like electricity then we should certainly think about the question  who is in charge of this new infrastructure and who is in control and does it really serve  free and open societies.  And we hope you get engaged in the discussion about these issues.  And thanks a lot.  Thank you.
re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__0_203.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__204_2663.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__2664_4151.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__4152_9707.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__9708_10235.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__10236_15071.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__15072_17999.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__18000_18731.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__18732_19835.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__19836_25979.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__25980_26363.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__26364_26603.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__26604_28475.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__28476_29243.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__29244_29579.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__29580_30563.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__30564_31259.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__31260_31559.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__31560_33335.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__33336_33827.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__33828_37715.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__37716_38291.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__38292_38399.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__38400_38711.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__38712_40487.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__40488_41747.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__41748_41879.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__41880_42239.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__42240_42755.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__42756_43127.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__43128_43199.png re_publica_2016___Julia_Manske__Eva_Blum-Dumontet__Who_will_be_smart_in_a_smart_city__43200_44076.png