On February 26, 2020 Waterfront Toronto’s Digital Strategy Advisory Panel (DSAP) provided a further report on proposals by Sidewalk Labs, the Google Subsidiary that is hoping to develop a “smart city” in a downtown Toronto lakefront neighbourhood.
This is the first in a series of blog posts discussing this report.
It is apparent in reading the report that the Advisory Panel feels that it is not being given adequate time to carry out the report. It states “there was insufficient time for the Panel to carefully review all relevant aspects of the available materials, deliberate as a body and draft a report which reflected a shared assessment of Sidewalk Labs proposals to date.” One of the panelists wrote that Sidewalk labs should be directed “NOT TO PREPARE ADDITIONAL MATERIALS” until the DSAP has had more time to understand the planning framework and the goals of the City and Waterfront Toronto.
More generally, concerns are being raised about the differences in resources between Alphabet (Google) and City, Waterfront Toronto and the DSAP. The panel states that the level of effort required to review proposed activities is “far beyond” what the panel could possibly provide, and that “additional technical review is required.”
This echoes Shoshana Zuboff’s comments in her book on Surveillance Capitalism, where she observes that technology companies such as Google often intentionally attempt to move faster than regulators are capable of keeping up with. The companies will colonize digital space, and then seek to rebuff later attempts by governments to regulate the colonized space.
Time and resources must be provided so that a thoughtful review of the Sidewalk Labs proposals can be made. Future blog posts will discuss some of the more detailed aspects of this DSAP report, including governance, de-identification of personal data, data localization, user agreements and consent, enforcement of privacy rules.