The future of urban planning is in data from the present: the protection of privacy in the context of smart cities

Abstract

Cities around the world today deal with situations in which an ever-increasing amount of citizen-generated data is used for urban planning and management purposes, with the potential to stimulate citizen engagement and participation, to promote inclusion, and to make communities more efficient, liveable and just. At the same time, advances in the science of re-identification, trade of personal data, and big-time analytics bring with them concerns about the collection, use, sharing, and disposal of data, processes that must be surrounded by caution. As new technologies generate more data than ever before, how to seize the opportunities brought to the cities, while preserving individual privacy and building public confidence? What experiences have been brought by cities that have faced this challenge? And how can Brazilian cities navigate between data-use initiatives that bring benefits to citizens, such as resource savings and increased efficiency of city government, but which can come with a significant cost of privacy? This article seeks to explore these issues, discussing international and national cases, in which the tension between the growing use of data by the so-called smart cities and the protection of citizens’ privacy is present.