The Emergence of Anti-Privacy and Control at the Nexus between the Concepts of Safe City and Smart City

Zaheer Allam

doi:10.3390/smartcities2010007

Abstract

The emergence of Big Data, accelerated through the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence, from the emerging, contemporary concept of smart cities coupled with that of the notion for safe cities is raising concerns of privacy and good governance that are impacting on socio-economic and liveability dimensions of urban fabrics. As these gain ground, largely due to economic pressures from large ICT providers, there is a notable increase towards the need for inclusion of human dimensions, complemented by the use of technology. However, the latter is seen as catalysing elements of control and propaganda which are thriving through oversimplified and non-inclusive urban IT policy measures. This paper dwells on the intersecting subjects of smart and safe cities and explores the highlighted issues that are deemed to cause concern and further explore the need for transparency and inclusivity in urban processes and systems. This paper is oriented towards urban planners and policy makers looking at the implementation of smart and safe cities concepts.

Highlights

Increasing conflicts in urban areas, coupled with an increasing urbanisation rate, is prompting new models for urban management and policing
Lacinák and Ristvej [5] note that the concept of safe city is explored with an aim of advancing the security status of cities by addressing issues like increasing urban conflicts, institutional and social crimes and in preventing violence prompted by factors like forced evictions, land conflicts and scramble for limited resources in the city
By leveraging on technologies such as predictive analytics, Big Data and others that are enabled by Internet of Things (IoT); which stands as the foundational structure of the concept of smart cities, the above safety and security concerns are better addressed, making cities safer

Summary

Introduction

Increasing conflicts in urban areas, coupled with an increasing urbanisation rate, is prompting new models for urban management and policing. Moser and Mcilwaine [2] posit that these challenges have the potential to spurt different forms of conflicts and violence in cities as the surging population try to access limited resources [3] The escalation of these challenges, affecting social, political and economic and environmental stability call for a change in the traditional ways in handling the security affairs of urban areas [4]. The same view is maintained by Alomair and Poovendran [24], who explain that scalability and dynamic qualities of IoT architectures are not fool-proof to the tech savvy population that have the potential to bypass security measures guarding sensitive data and devices Due to those direct security concerns, the safe city concept may face difficulties in its applicability as expressed by Mosenia and Jha [25]. This paper offers a perspective on the emerging challenges from the combined adoption of the two concepts

The Safe City

The Smart City

Combined Adoption of Smart City and Safe City

An Agenda for Urban Comfort

Conclusions