TPRC 2024: The 52nd Research Conference on Communications, Information and Inter

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Abstract:
This paper investigates a representative sample of smart city plans for the availability of data management policies. Review of smart city planning documents shows that few, if any, cities have well-articulated smart city plans. Using insights from agency theory as applied to contracting, we argue that data plans are designed to provide freedom to parties to utilize data in ways that may not adequately protect data sovereignty and digital rights. Current practices in smart cities for privacy, copyright, and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) that are often guided by commercial interests and private ownership are inherently in conflict with citizens’ data access and privacy concerns.

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Abstract:
This study investigates the policies accompanying initiatives among many cities to become “smart.” Smart Cities technologies historically began with monitoring systems designed to improve the efficiencies of the physical and social systems required in contemporary urban environments, using communication networks as an increasingly capable backbone for gathering and transmitting all sorts of information (Mitchell, 1995). In the 21st century, several technical capabilities converged to create unique challenges regarding the intersection of smart city systems, privacy and civil liberties. Here we first examine how cities are crafting ordinances around surveillance technologies which dovetail with smart city technologies, paying particular attention to those that implicate AI. How they frame the need for regulation invokes several concerns that range from the administrative to data governance to human rights.

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Abstract:
This article describes findings from user testing of Long Beach’s Digital Rights Platform. The Platform uses physical signage and an online portal to provide residents with a clear understanding of how local government applies predictive and diagnostic analytics to personal data. Grounded in theoretical frameworks of trust, surveillance studies, contextual integrity, and information economics, the Digital Rights Platform advances two critical and closely intersecting priorities for the City of Long Beach: implementation of its Data Privacy Guidelines and its vision to use residents’ data in non-discriminatory ways. We conducted user testing of the initial deployment of the Digital Rights Platform with 77 residents who each participated in data walks and two focus group discussions—one prior to and one following each walk—between March 2, 2024 and March 9, 2024. The analysis focuses on residents’ attitudes toward smart city technologies, how they situate data collection by these platforms and devices, and how deployment of a Digital Rights Platform influences—or doesn’t influence—levels of trust toward surveillance technologies deployed by the City of Long Beach. 

The findings from our March 2024 user testing events suggest that residents highly value access to information about the City's data privacy practices, but that it is unrealistic to expect residents to routinely read data privacy labels and scan QR codes when interacting with civic technologies in the public realm. Our analysis also finds that residents do not distinguish between data collection by City-deployed technologies/platforms and those deployed by corporations and social media sites (despite that local government does not commodify residents' personal information). In fact, residents said they perceive City data collection as part of a larger surveillant culture. Another key finding is that study volunteer are aware that they routinely trade privacy for convenience and "public safety" benefits. Finally, study participants expressed concern that non-English speakers and older residents are excluded from the benefits of the Digital Rights Platform.

Our findings will inform the next phase of our research. Specifically, we plan to collaborate with privacy engineers to develop a mobile privacy assistant that makes it simple for residents to set privacy preferences, and to request that third-party actors delete currently held data about them (a right granted under the California Consumer Privacy Act).