Who wants to live in a data farm?
The phrase Smart is becoming increasingly sinister forms of double-speak, as smart utility meters have proved the opposite in Britain and death tolls suggest that smart motorway technology is a lethally stupid idea. Meanwhile the US and China are demonstrating that the smart city concept can easily turn into a dystopian nightmare of dragnet surveillance powered by personal data farms, according to a report in Reclaimthenet. This could prove counter product to vendors of well run, public services in transport, infrastructure and utilities.
Mass surveillance used by Internet of Things (IoT) service providers in the interests of smart cities will begin to look for abnormal or suspicious” behaviour soon, warned civil liberties group Amnesty International. “We must ask ourselves some urgent questions: Who sets the norm for what is normal,” said Secretary General Agnes Callamard, “officials who control the designations of [acceptable] activities in societies also have the power to exacerbate a chilling effect on dissent and protest, and to supercharge discrimination against communities already targeted.”
Amnesty has identified the harvesting of biometric data, the lifeblood of functioning smart city, as crux of the problem. This mater of opinion, unless resolved to the satisfaction of civil liberties groups, could halt the progress of any further public sector contracts. It’s also the point of contention where critics and opposition break ranks with those pushing the idea.
On Sunday the Sunday Times reported on how a Jack Teixeira, a low ranking 21-year-old US airman, was given access to confidential data on top secret military missions in Ukraine. The information, which included data shared by UK spy agency MI6, was promptly available for two weeks before US intelligence agencies found out, by reading the New York Times. This level of official incompetence along with evidence of every day intrusions on the law-abiding public, is making people fear that a smart city will be as safe as one of Britain’s smart motorways.
The usual promise of a more convenient future will come at too high a price, according to Reclaimthenet’s correspondent. The US Department of Transportation (DoT) has already tried, and failed, to turn Columbus, Ohio into a smart city. Now US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is doubling down on this failure with $94 million to be spent on 59 more smart city projects. Overall half a billion dollars will be spent on the US Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants Program, approved in 2021 in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and set to be used up during the next five years.
Some see this as stubbornly insisting on what most taxpayers do not want – namely, more biometric surveillance data-driven government interference in their lives.
Buttigieg’s department has now approved a number of grants covering different elements, such as using drones for surveillance and delivery, smart grid and traffic signals, connected and autonomous vehicles, sensors and a range of IoT infrastructure.
Critics like investigative journalist Whitney Webb describe smart cities as a thorough system of mass surveillance, that is micromanaged by technocrats who have access to data streams processed by some form of Artificial Intelligence. Around the world scepticism is growing over technology company’s respect for the privacy of da. In Toronto, a Google-backed scheme fell through in 2020, thanks to the Canadian public’s reaction to fears of mass surveillance and profiteering.
“It’s not for nothing that Big Tech behemoths are lurking behind these projects – there is promise not only of big money, but also control at stake here,” said Reclaimthenet.