When talking about smart cities, data collection is deeply involved, as it allows for a lot of different analysis that can be useful from traffic propagation to air conditions. Smart cities directly involves itself with knowing what is happening in a determined area be it small or big. As useful as data can be most of the times said data comes from citizens as they are the one who live in it and interact with it.
The big issue is that when this data comes from the citizens, rightfully so it really belongs to them and they can decide if said data can actually be used, which is creating issues for cities government as they cannot fully assure that the data that is recolected will only be used for that specific purpose. Some governments have even decided to create independent bodies that would regulate the data so no third party can use it for an unintended purpose.
While these are some views on how smart cities have challenges to overcome to be able to use data in its fullest potential and good ways to go about it there is always an outlier to how things are and should be done, cue China.
So, at the moment China is going through a period where they are integrating the concept of smart cities more and more every day. The problem is the reasons behind the data they are collecting. Straight from “Nosedive” an episode of the series Black mirror, a show where each episode explores a what if sccenario of technology and how it reflects in society, China is attempting to rate their citizens based on different criteria that is gathered from their actions in order to determine if they are an active member of society and if they should be granted certain privileges.
Just analyzing China’s actions it can be easy to understand why most citizens are against unregulated collection of their data as it can define how they are seen as a person in an objective measurable way which skips actually evaluating people as how they are. It might be faster but its definitely ugly.
Smart Cities 