It is thought that a smart city enhances the quality of human life. This is why they are looked upon as smart ‘ livable spaces’. It is thought that a smart city will boost economic development , make services available without any hassles and improve citizens wellbeing. The smart polis reminds us of Aristotle’s Polis. Plato would not accept a smart city. He did reject the Greek polis. To Aristotle, however a smart city has to exist for good life and not for safe life as it appears to be the chief goal of our smart cities today. Smart city cannot seat above us and dictate terms to us . It has to be with us and be a means to good life.
What we call smart governance seems to be attacking democratic modes of organization of a city. The data driven dynamic interventions in the regulation of services, securities, policing and other comforts of life may be under bias and ideology . All this requires the regulation of the flow of data. Sensors feed data and data analytics continuously offers efficient directives in real time based on the algorithms in operation for the smart tasks that life in a smart city. A question, therefore, becomes import: will the smart city become another platform of surveillance capitalism?
India’s 100 smart cities project has been seen as a means to bring global capitalism . Smart cities also claim to sustain environment by introducing sensors that monitor in real time carbon emission and introduce eco-friendly solutions that will protect the cities from the effects of climate change like flood, droughts, fires , temperature swings etc. Besides, sustainability, smart city promises economic efficiency alongside , efficient distribution of services and goods as well as management of law and order, policing and security.
The paradox is that to be safe and enjoy all the services that a smart city offers, we will have to surrender every bit of our information. But will this intimate data remain safe? Our security and efficient delivery of the goods and services requires us to accept the increase of the surveillance power over us. The increase of surveillance means the increase of power of the eye of power. Hence, the concern is whether this power is transparent, constraint and sufficiently subject to democratic control.
May be the smart city might attach the normative goals of equity, inclusivity, economic opportunity and sustainability into its modes of governance. The achievements of all these goals will depend on the way or the manner in which the data flow is managed put to operation for the wellbeing of the natives of the city. Data can enable both the government and the residents to take informed decisions in dynamic contexts like the traffic flows at pick hours in the city.
It is thought that data driven approach is just as it will open services to all without any discrimination. But it is not true, algorithms are known to be biased. As well as in Foucauldian sense all knowledge being power, more data will give more power in the hands of the Government. Data flows enables top-down authoritarian governance. Hence, the digital and AI architecture of a smart city will disrupt democratic governance unless we put safe guards. There is real danger of loss of personal liberty in a data driven urban governance. This might also lead to the transfer of common wealth and resources to big business that is offering the big tech to run a smart city. Smart city may be efficient but it seems to be subversive to democratic governance.
The citizens of a smart city are data subjects and have to be mindful of their right to privacy. This suggests that data subjects require to know what data is being collected and what is inferred from that data and with whom that data is shared ( data transparency) and how it is used for the good of the city. This is data of the people, controlled by the people and used for the people by the people. This is data democracy.
Data democracy requires transparency about the sites of data collections as well as about the kind of sensor are engaged to do data collection. It means that democratic governance requires that the government has to be transparent about the data that is generated , processed ( who is doing the processing) and put to use with its citizens. It is within this transparency, we have to also factor in individual privacy and intimacy and, therefore, there have to be pre-agreed understanding/ policy regarding the lines that cannot be crossed in the quest of collection of individual data.
Security of the smart city will also include the security of data from hackers and cyberattacks. This is why we need an ethics for a smart city which will ensure that data is collected , processed and used only for a legitimate purpose. The best practices would require the entire process be made available to the data subject who is also a data citizen and as such is the owner of the data. This means the smart city has to become a platform of data democracy where all its citizens can access and use data ethically for their wellbeing. No data can be anonymized and sold to benefit big business.
The data citizens , the natives of the smart city have the challenge to take control of their digital future and exercise their sovereignty over all technology employed in the city. Data democracy will require us to recognize the sanctity of the data commons. This is why the data citizen of a smart city has to become digitally literate otherwise vested interest might take advantage of the digital divide and sell the data commons for 30 silver coins. A smart city cannot covert it citizenry idiots. It has to take them to the height of human civilization where human dignity , freedom and democratic values have to shine.
