Smart City Technology and Privacy Blog

By David Fewer, CIPPIC Director

Having looked at privacy interests in Smart Cities from the regulatory perspectives of the law and public opinion, we turn, in the series of blog posts below, to consider proposed implementations of smart city technologies in Canadian cities.  This series of short posts, authored by CIPPIC students and interns, considers smart city technologies in the Canadian news.

In the first three posts (“Sidewalk Labs Tech), we consider some of the use cases proposed by Sidewalk Labs, the Google affiliate in discussion with Waterfront Toronto to revitalize and remake Quayside neighbourhood of Toronto – the infamous “Sidewalk Toronto” proposal.  These posts set us up nicely to consider the privacy implications of the technologies proposed in Sidewalk Lab’s Master Innovation and Development Plan, made public this week.

Second, in four more posts, we will examine the winning proposals of Montreal, Katinnganiq, Guelph, and Bridgewater in Canada’s Smart City Challenge.  Each of these proposals includes technologies and services that have privacy implications.  As the winners move from the drawing board to the planning rooms, privacy compliance will move front and centre.