This piece, “A Mess on the Sidewalk: Inside the great digital mis-engineering of the Toronto waterfront” by John Lorinc, struck me as significant because of ongoing public concerns with privacy, surveillance, habit tracking, and data collection by both tech firms and government agencies. The piece explores the idea of a “Smart City,” and a specific tech lab that was bidding on the opportunity to develop their conception of the smart city in Toronto, Canada. This blog post will summarize the key points of the article, highlight specific applications of technology in these smart cities, and explore questions around privacy and surveillance, as well as the implications of the rise of smart cities for information professionals.
Sidewalk Labs, a smart city startup launched by Google under the parent company Alphabet, was bidding for the opportunity to develop an underused area of the Toronto waterfront to create “a neighbourhood built from the internet up.” Their pitch boasts many high tech features including automated mini buses, self navigating underground delivery carts, and ultimately intends for Toronto to become “a test bed for high-tech infrastructure.”
Sidewalk’s plan for the city would necessitate the collection of huge amounts of real time data in order to make many of these high tech features effective. “Sidewalk’s plan turns on an extensive deployment of networked digital sensors embedded in the public realm — including civic buildings, municipal infrastructure, and traffic systems.” Users (or citizens) of these smart cities would be able to see the application of this collected data in yet to be created apps that would offer conveniences like finding parking spots or, as the article mentions, could lead to services such as automated buses whose routes vary depending on where people are waiting. Craig Nevill-Manning, the head of engineering at Sidewalk labs, described another possible application for the smart city. He describes a sensing device that would track pedestrians crossing the street. “These sensors, which he insists won’t capture any compromising or identifying information, can estimate the time someone requires to cross safely, based on a calculation of their walking speed.” Theoretically, Nevill-Manning explains, that data could be used to “tweak” the length of time that certain pedestrian lights run for, which would be a benefit particularly to elderly people crossing busy intersections.
While Sidewalk states that they would make anonymous (or “de-identify”) the collected data, the continuous collection of information about citizens has the potential to raise more issues than it solves. Issues as significant as data collected about undocumented immigrants in these cities being available to ICE, to facial recognition and AI software being used to flag people who may “look” like a criminal.
Issues of privacy, tracking, and data collection pose existential questions for municipalities and citizens alike. As digital technologies become required for everyday activities and contemporary lifestyles, it seems like an obvious trajectory for tech firms like Google to embed themselves deeper into our surroundings and civic infrastructures. Once they are embedded, however, is it possible to monitor or hold accountable their influence in our communities?
In class we discussed the Hong Kong protests and the protesters tearing down or obstructing facial recognition software. These are generally obvious (but not always) cameras similar to the cameras that private businesses employ inside and outside of stores to prevent theft. What the Smart City does is embed that same technology in all facets of the city itself, for the purposes of analyzing patterns and behaviors of citizens, ostensibly to improve efficiency of city planning features.
The problem with Sidewalk Labs and the move toward creating smart cities is that it is near impossible to understand the long term effects of any of these technologies. In addition, as administrations (local to federal) change, it is not unlikely that the scope and use of the data collected could change overnight. Given the novelty of this relationship between municipalities and tech, I would hope to see increasingly serious and democratic discussions taking place to understand the implications of incorporating these digital technologies into public infrastructures.
“Facing mounting criticism about its inability to adequately scrutinize a tech plan concocted by one of the world’s most powerful data companies, WT [Waterfront Toronto] officials last spring set up an independent “digital strategy advisory panel” — made up mostly of law, intellectual property, and planning professors, as well as IT industry insiders — to pose hard questions about Sidewalk’s plans, especially those involving privacy, accountability, and ownership of the data. Despite the introduction of nascent oversight protocols, the list of key players involved in the whole messy process who have resigned, been fired, or otherwise opted out grows by the month.”
The unintended but serious consequences of employing high tech digital tools in the infrastructure of cities and neighborhoods should be considered in discussions about the benefits of convenience (services) and of collecting data (research). The concept of the smart city is one that employs many types of technologies that will alter the ways we engage with our communities, our neighborhoods, and our local government. We will also need to consider the ability, or lack thereof, to opt out of having one’s data collected as they walk to the grocery store. I imagine we will be seeing a push from tech firms as well as local governments for the use of these technologies, and it will be our responsibility to think critically about their role in society, and whose interests they are serving.
This article leaves me thinking about the future of embedded technologies in our municipal spaces. What is the relationship between local, state, and the federal government with the tech agencies seeking to develop and sell products. As more and more services become privatised, how do we remain critical of municipalities that seek to outsource services for profit? Are these services required for city life, or do they offer minor conveniences for citizens while accumulating large profits for shareholders? How do we balance the convenience that technology offers with what it forces us to give up? As tech plays a bigger and bigger role in our lives and communities, we will all need to evaluate what is expected, required, and necessary to demand of our government.
This piece was originally a blog post for Info tech 654 at Pratt Institute. Written October 2019 with minor edits.
Note for Medium readers: There have been substantial developments in this project. For more info check out this piece in the Verge here.
