Alignment of IT Authority and Citizens of Proposed Smart Cities in India: System Security and Privacy Perspective

Abstract

The entire world is trying to provide modern facilities as well as updated amenities to their citizens. As such, attempts are being made to establish smart cities or to convert cities or a portion of the big city into smart cities throughout the globe. Most of the countries are trying to provide world-class facilities to its citizens, and India is also gearing up to make its smart city project a success. Both private sector and Government departments along with citizens are trying to work together to achieve this goal. The ministry of Urban Development of Government of India at the top level has proposed to create 100 smart cities throughout India where its residents could be provided with all modern facilities which will include all possible IT-enabled services to its citizens of the proposed smart cities. To make the Indian smart city dream a success and to provide best IT-enabled services with best performance and reliability, many factors of diversified nature are required to be considered. In this paper, we have primarily considered two important factors, that is, the level of expertise of the internal IT staff to develop and support the IT-enabled services in the proposed smart cities and the citizens’ participation to use the IT-enabled services with focusing special attention on the security and privacy aspects. Although many studies have been carried out in terms of security and privacy issues of IT-enabled services, there are very few studies conducted on the aspect of system security and privacy policy on the proposed Indian smart cities considering internal IT staff and potential residents of these proposed smart cities. This study will help to understand how the system security and privacy policy influence the adoption of IT-enabled services by the potential inhabitants of the proposed smart cities of India.