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'City of Surveillance': Google-backed smart city sounds like a dystopian nightmare
http://www.rt.com/news/442188-toronto-google-surveilance-city-privacy/Date Written: 2018-10-24 Publisher: RT Year Published: 2018 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX23420 A Google-backed project to build the interconnected, data-driven ‘city of the future’ sounds like all George Orwell’s nightmares come true, and is now in the spotlight after a privacy expert resigned from the project in protest. Toronto’s Waterfront district used to be an industrial wasteland, but Sidewalk Labs – a sister company of Google – wants to turn that wasteland into a prototype ‘city of the future,’ where data helps planners micromanage every aspect of urban life. Abstract: - Excerpt: why should the public trust a Google-connected company with its data? Google already keeps extensive records on its users. Every journey made with an Android phone, every YouTube video watched, data from every app downloaded, and sound and images from laptop microphones and cameras are all available to the tech giant by default. All of this data is kept by Google, unless of course the government requests that Google hands it over – which US government agencies have done over 20,000 times in the first half of 2018, with over 80 percent of requests fulfilled. Whatever about the government, at least private companies can’t access Google’s treasure trove of personal data, right? Wrong. Google told US senators in July that it lets app developers share user data with marketers for the purposes of ad-targeting “so long as they are transparent with the users about how they are using the data.” This notice can be seen in a pop-up box when a user installs an app, or can be buried in the app’s privacy statement. With google already enjoying unfettered access to your digital life, Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto project looks set to extend that access into your physical life too. Subject Headings |