PRIVACY VS. CONVENIENCE IN SMART CITIES: A TRADE-OFF?
Our cities are already becoming more connected, and most of us now rely on the internet for many of our daily tasks
The concept of the smart city might sound a bit like science fiction, but it’s largely a natural evolution of changes already underway. While the benefits of smart cities are clear, there’s still one difficult point to grapple with: Privacy. How much privacy can one expect when living in a smart city? Is giving up privacy a trade people are willing to make?
A Loss of Anonymity?
Cities today already collect data. Any swipe of a bus or train pass, for example, will be tracked, and this information helps planners better schedule routes even though it doesn’t uncover individual identities. Furthermore, most people living in cities accept that they’re on camera most of the time, although security cameras still generate some controversy. Fortunately for city planners, many of these relatively uncontroversial metrics are sufficient to enable many of the advantages of smart cities. However, incremental changes can present some ethical questions.
Even though most of our public activities in urban areas are caught on camera, we typically don’t expect to be personally identified unless we’re somehow involved in a crime. However, law enforcement agencies have previously pushed to use identification systems more regularly in an effort to capture fugitives, and there’s no guarantee that these systems won’t create personal profiles that can eventually be tied to us.