A Tale of Two Smart Cities
As we pre-order our morning coffee using free street WiFi, tap out of the tube station using our smartwatch and perhaps flick a mental bitcoin at a Big Issue man like the digital wankers we all are, we want to know that this level of convenience is a rule, not an exception.
But what happens when technology progresses ahead of the society it’s meant to be improving? Privacy laws and data protection are still a grey area, because grey is the last thing we’ll see as we’re waterboarded to death for talking shit about Boris Johnson in earshot of our Amazon Echo.
We’re slowly learning that the complacency previous generations had about literally everything that mattered is something we can’t afford to adopt when it comes to our data – arguably one of the last resources we have left that hasn’t yet been completely commodified. However, an increasing number of countries are encouraging their citizens to embrace even more interconnectivity. This time, under the ‘cunning’ guise of improving the way cities run.
Image by Paul Blow
Take Alibaba’s City Brain Project. This Chinese retail giant, which also has a subsidiary known as Alibaba Cloud, wants to use AI to create a catch-all infrastructure that is powered by user data in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And credit where it’s due, they managed to make some real improvements to Hangzhou in China when they focused the project’s efforts on reducing traffic congestion in the city back in 2015. In 2013, Hangzhou had the sixth worst congestion statistics in the world, according to TomTom Traffic Index Reports, which could result in a half hour peak time trip resulting in an infuriating 57-minute journey that left your dental records on the steering wheel.
But by monitoring traffic and amalgamating data from sources such as mapping apps, cameras and public transportation systems, traffic speeds were increased by 15%, and road accidents were automatically detected for a faster response. But there’s a difference between this and what’s being proposed in Malaysia.
With grand plans to upscale Kuala Lumpa’s digital infrastructure, Alibaba has already stated that it plans to sell its machine learning capabilities and data-gathering resources to smaller companies but hasn’t adopted transparency on how this data will be used: if disclosure compromises the integrity of the algorithm, companies like Alibaba can choose to keep their finger to their lips. But with an entire city’s data at its disposal, this opacity is more than just a little bit concerning.
But perhaps more worryingly, The Alibaba Group’s affiliate developed Sesame Credit, the company that is now running China’s Social Credit System. This system, which will be mandatory in 2020, sees millions of customers scored according to their behaviours and social interactions. For example, if you’ve just spend the last couple of months playing God of War, Sesame Credit’s mysterious algorithm will see you as a piece of unproductive shit and boot your score down. However, if you’re publicly celebrating the government on Facebook, or any act deemed as a ‘positive interaction’, you may find that your score increases as a result. Penalties for a bad score include travel bans , having your children banned from the best schools, finding yourself out of the running for a job you really wanted and being publicly named and pied. This last one will also mean that others may be forced to stop interacting with you as their score could take a hit as a result. Terrifying? Yep! Perhaps giving Alibaba yet more power to surveil, harvest data and ultimately control the population of another country through a smart city isn’t the smartest idea…
Image by Synergy Art
On the flip side, take Barcelona. Barcelona en Comu, a citizen platform launched in 2014, recognised that the city had previously harvested data from its citizens through its sensor networks and used it in part to improve city efficiencies. But this data had also been used to develop products for sale by its private sector partners. As the governing minority in Barcelona, Barcelona en Comu has been trying to invert the system back in favour of the citizen and the collective agenda of the city. “Now we have a big contract with Vodafone”, Francesca Bria, Barcelona’s Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer, has commented. “Every month Vodafone has to give machine-readable data to city hall. Before, that didn’t happen. They just took all the data and used it for their own benefit”. Armed with the belief that citizen data belongs to the citizen, city hall have begun Project DECODE (Decentralised Citizen-Owned Data Ecosystems) that allows the individual to control who has access to their data, why and to do what.
Bria comments, “I think in the technological world it’s very important to put forward a narrative that’s different to the surveillance capitalism from Silicon Valley, and the dystopian Chinese model, with its Social Credit System that uses citizen data to give them a rating that then gives them access to certain services. We want to lead Europe to put forward an alternative model.”
The dystopian versus the utopian in both of these cities, but as individuals, the time is now to ensure that our data is protected, no matter who comes into power. How? Your guess is as good as mine, but a good start could be baying for tech companies and governments to get their house in order before they start building that fucking extension they’ve always wanted.
