Smart City: Are you ready to sacrifice privacy for efficiency?
Data processing helps the city to become “smarter”, but it raises new questions: for how long will city dwellers endure ever stronger methods of gathering information that go deeper into their personal lives?
Privacy should play a crucial role in the strategy of the city, otherwise citizens will be afraid of innovative technologies. Wim Elfrink, executive vice president of industry solutions and head of globalization at Cisco, leads a team dedicated to building a smart city. He is confident that the authorities are obliged to give citizens the choice of whether their data can be used.
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The authorities should ask citizens when launching projects aimed at increasing the efficiency of the city by optimizing public services, whether they agree with tracking them.
In London, for example, a number of sensors have already been installed to create a “smart city”. Sensors collect information about the availability of parking spaces, electricity consumption and other data, the analysis of which allows you to learn about existing problems.
For example: processing information from sensors in Westminster car parks showed that drivers usually ride the same route in search of parking, after which the authorities enacted laws encouraging car owners to look for empty seats on neighboring streets.
This is the parking sensor used in Westminster.
Companies have already received a backlash on movement tracking from citizens. Visitors to Nordstrom, a large American chain of stores, were not very pleased with the detection of the sensors that monitor their movements around the store.
Renew was also forced to close a program that tracks the movement of citizens along the street. The sensors were installed in garbage bins along Chipside Street .. The company's executive director argued that citizens could refuse to track them - but most of those who were traced did not hear anything about this program.
Elfrink, as "the pioneer in the field of smart cities in the past seven years" (as he calls himself), has paid particular attention to Barcelona.
Along with the “smart parking” equipment, Elfrink suggests that the city authorities could give tax breaks to citizens if these citizens do not throw out much garbage. The fact is that vehicles collecting garbage can then travel along more efficient routes - ignoring on certain days those containers that should not be clogged.
It is in Barcelona that most of the garbage containers are equipped with sensors. Instead of driving to a half-empty container, spending time and money accordingly.
Another interesting area of work is urban lighting. Its intensity in Barcelona is controlled depending on weather conditions.
Elfrink also noted that London is “definitely” a smart city, and praised David Cameron for encouraging innovation. He also advises to double the budget for the Internet of Things. And, of course, you need to connect every kettle and fridge to the Internet.
The most important element of the "smart city" Wil Elfrink calls the developed policy around data processing and the close relationship between the authorities and the developer community, businesses. Such a connection, one might say, “friendship”, makes us create new projects and work for the good of the city.
And although large companies, such as IBM and Cisco, are likely to be ready in the initial stages to help the city with all their might, investing in its infrastructure to receive further orders, it is local developers who will create the most useful applications. Another question is how exactly these applications will be used, and how citizens will react to them.
And, of course, the question ...
Privacy should play a crucial role in the strategy of the city, otherwise citizens will be afraid of innovative technologies. Wim Elfrink, executive vice president of industry solutions and head of globalization at Cisco, leads a team dedicated to building a smart city. He is confident that the authorities are obliged to give citizens the choice of whether their data can be used.
')
The authorities should ask citizens when launching projects aimed at increasing the efficiency of the city by optimizing public services, whether they agree with tracking them.
In London, for example, a number of sensors have already been installed to create a “smart city”. Sensors collect information about the availability of parking spaces, electricity consumption and other data, the analysis of which allows you to learn about existing problems.
For example: processing information from sensors in Westminster car parks showed that drivers usually ride the same route in search of parking, after which the authorities enacted laws encouraging car owners to look for empty seats on neighboring streets.
This is the parking sensor used in Westminster.
Companies have already received a backlash on movement tracking from citizens. Visitors to Nordstrom, a large American chain of stores, were not very pleased with the detection of the sensors that monitor their movements around the store.
Renew was also forced to close a program that tracks the movement of citizens along the street. The sensors were installed in garbage bins along Chipside Street .. The company's executive director argued that citizens could refuse to track them - but most of those who were traced did not hear anything about this program.
Elfrink, as "the pioneer in the field of smart cities in the past seven years" (as he calls himself), has paid particular attention to Barcelona.
Along with the “smart parking” equipment, Elfrink suggests that the city authorities could give tax breaks to citizens if these citizens do not throw out much garbage. The fact is that vehicles collecting garbage can then travel along more efficient routes - ignoring on certain days those containers that should not be clogged.
It is in Barcelona that most of the garbage containers are equipped with sensors. Instead of driving to a half-empty container, spending time and money accordingly.
Another interesting area of work is urban lighting. Its intensity in Barcelona is controlled depending on weather conditions.
The best will be those cities where the authorities work closely with developers.
Elfrink also noted that London is “definitely” a smart city, and praised David Cameron for encouraging innovation. He also advises to double the budget for the Internet of Things. And, of course, you need to connect every kettle and fridge to the Internet.
The most important element of the "smart city" Wil Elfrink calls the developed policy around data processing and the close relationship between the authorities and the developer community, businesses. Such a connection, one might say, “friendship”, makes us create new projects and work for the good of the city.
And although large companies, such as IBM and Cisco, are likely to be ready in the initial stages to help the city with all their might, investing in its infrastructure to receive further orders, it is local developers who will create the most useful applications. Another question is how exactly these applications will be used, and how citizens will react to them.
And, of course, the question ...
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/219397/
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