New research shows that police forces across Canada are building extensive digital surveillance hubs without any public engagement. Smart city projects use very similar technologies with the same dangers, yet here residents and municipalities are increasingly implementing Open Smart City principles to avoid potential harms and strengthen public oversight. The police should not be exempt from democratic accountability and the same principles can be applied to them to rebuild it. Among many elements, the Smart Cities Challenge winners stood out in contrast to the Sidewalk Lab’s project through their foundational emphasis on resident-led design and development. These RTOCs bring together the same kinds of smart, AI-driven, surveillance-based technologies that many smart city projects utilize, and indeed they frequently integrate existing smart city systems like data from public transit cards1 or private and public CCTV networks into their surveillance apparatus.

Source: thestar January 01, 2022 05:03 UTC