Geothink co-applicant Dr. Teresa Scassa (University of Ottawa) recently appeared before the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities to speak on issues of data ownership and control, transparency, accountability and privacy in the context of smart cities. Speaking to the committee on 14 February, she emphasised the importance of “ensuring that the development of smart cities is consistent with the goals of open government.” She noted that data is viewed as a resource, therefore “where the collection or generation of data is paid by taxpayers it is surely a public resource.” In the smart city of the future, where data will be collected through sensors and citizen interactions with software platforms owned and operated by government or private firms, Scassa has voiced concern over rights of ownership and control over data. If data is collected on us as we navigate public spaces, do individuals maintain sovereignty over this data? Can cities maintain ownership over data collected by outsourced firms? Should the private sector owner of a sensor get to restrict access to data they collect, even in the context of open cities?

“How can we reconcile private sector and public sector data protection laws where the public sector increasingly relies upon the private sector for the collection and processing of its smart cities data?”

Scassa detailed three potential scenarios to explore these ideas. Read the full post on her blog here.