Privacy Expert Resigns From Alphabet-Backed Smart City Project Over Surveillance Concerns
Privacy Expert Resigns From Alphabet-Backed Smart City
Project Over Surveillance Concerns
By Jennings Brown October 23, 2018 12:15pm
A privacy expert tasked with helping a new smart city
development protect the data privacy of residents has resigned over concerns
that her guidelines would be largely ignored.
“I imagined us creating a Smart City of Privacy, as
opposed to a Smart City of Surveillance,” Ann Cavoukian, the former privacy
commissioner of Ontario, wrote in her resignation letter from Google sister
company Sidewalk Labs, reports Global News.
A year ago, Waterfront Toronto enlisted Alphabet-backed
Sidewalk Labs to create a plan for a smart city neighborhood in the city’s
Quayside development. As a consultant for the endeavor, Cavoukian developed a
plan called Privacy by Design that was meant to ensure that citizens’ personal
data would be protected.
But the project has faced skepticism and criticism from
the start. In an op-ed published earlier this month, former BlackBerry CEO Jim
Balsillie referred to the development as “a colonizing experiment in
surveillance capitalism attempting to bulldoze important urban, civic and
political issues.”
Cavoukian told the Global News that her resignation was
intended as a “strong statement” on the project’s approach to data privacy. “I
felt I had no choice because I had been told by Sidewalk Labs that all of the data
collected will be de-identified at source,” she told Global News. But then, at
a Thursday meeting, Cavoukian reportedly realized such anonymization protocols
could not be guaranteed. She told the Candian news outlet that Sidewalk Labs
revealed at that meeting that their organization could commit to her
guidelines, but other involved groups would not be required to abide by them.
Cavoukian realized third parties could possibly have
access to identifiable data gathered through the project. “When I heard that, I
said, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t support this. I have to resign because you committed
to embedding privacy by design into every aspect of your operation,’” she told
Global News.
In a statement shared with Gizmodo and other outlets,
Sidewalk Labs explained that at the meeting with Waterfront Toronto’s Digital
Strategy Advisory, “it became clear that Sidewalk Labs would play a more
limited role in near-term discussions about a data governance framework at
Quayside.” Sidewalk Labs stated it has committed to Cavoukian’s suggested
guidelines.
“Though that question is settled, the question of whether
other companies involved in the Quayside project would be required to do so is
unlikely to be worked out soon, and may be out of Sidewalk Labs’ hands,” the
Sidewalk Labs statement read. “For these reasons and others, Dr. Cavoukian has
decided that it does not make sense to continue working as a paid consultant
for Sidewalk Labs.”
Waterfront Toronto released a statement claiming it “has
great respect for Dr. Cavoukian and Privacy by Design,” and said it “recognizes
and respects the obligation to adhere to Canadian privacy laws, which go beyond
Privacy by Design.”
Cavoukian told Global News that she is pressing
Waterfront Toronto to anonymize data.
Earlier this month, TechGirls Canada founder Saadia
Muzaffar stepped down from her role as a member of the Waterfront Toronto
Digital Strategy Advisory Panel because she believed Waterfront Toronto has
evaded questions about privacy and shown “apathy and a lack of leadership
regarding shaky public trust.”
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