The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Paris, France, from 12 to 14 November 2018. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> LUCA BELLI: Good morning to everyone. So we will have a little reschedule of our agenda, of our workshop agenda, as we are trying to figure out if the remote panelists are connected or not. So we will have as speakers -- my name is Luca Belli, first of all. I am a professor in Geneva. I will have today with me Nicholas Bramble from Google. Just quickly introducing yourself, if you want to say more about what are your specific tasks and what is your organization doing in the field of smart cities besides your presentation, feel free to say. Then Jhessica Reia, researcher, one of my colleagues. Olga Cavelli, the founder of the South School on Internet Governance, many other things. There is Jogi, the father of MyData.org, which is an extremely interesting initiative. And I would also like to thank Raoul Plommer, our remote moderator. We should also have online Robert Matthews from the University of Hawaii actually, but he spent 37 years as a senior official from the U.S. Government with interconnection of systems and critical infrastructure, and also Jean-Philbert Nsengimana, who was previously the Cabinet Minister for ICT of Rwanda and now is Senior Advisor of Smart Africa.
Let me -- I see that Robert Matthews has just replied to my email to tell me whether he is online or not. He can hear me.
Okay. Can we open the voice connection to see if Robert can speak? Is the connection open? So Robert, if you can hear us. We cannot hear you, but are they speaking? I cannot see that. His mic is muted apparently?
>> (Off microphone)
>> LUCA BELLI: Okay. Perhaps, Robert, you can appear in the speaking queue to start. Let's do that, let's maybe reschedule Robert right after Nicholas, and let's start with Nicholas, who is already here, who can tell us Google's vision with regard to smart cities. We know you are investing a lot. We have one of your branches, Sidewalk Labs is building an entire block in Toronto. So while we figure out how to have a smooth connection with Robert, please, Nicholas, go ahead. You can introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more.
>> NICHOLAS BRAMBLE: Thank you, Luca. I am honored to be here today. I feel strange opening the panel because almost everyone in this room is probably more of an expert on smart cities than I am, so I will try to talk relatively briefly about am so of our projects, some of our interests in smart cities, and then hopefully have a more detailed discussion during Q&A.
Obviously, a growing population in the world lives in urban areas. It was about 50% back in 2007, and I think that the UN predicted this figure would grow to over 70% by 2050. Cities are facing a series of intensifying struggles from high cost of living to congested commutes to environmental issues. (Audio cutting out) -- and accelerate the process of urban innovation. I grew up in a small town about an hour from New York City, and I never went to New York City growing up, sort of reflection of how different cities often see to people sometimes. Until 17, I didn't make the journey in part because there wasn't public transit to get there, and the city itself was difficult to navigate for a young person. I will try to talk about some of the opportunities first and then address some of the pitfalls that come up when you are thinking about these issues.
Technology is in many ways changing the relationship of citizens, public services. There are a lot of examples out there. There are garbage cans that alert you when they are full. There are ways to map air quality levels to asthma attacks and to sort of target public health interventions based on that kind of data. There are ways to map lead levels in cities. This is a big issue in the United States, where there's a clear linkage between the presence of lead and developmental delays and disabilities among the youth in America. We are very interested in figuring out how do you better map levels and predict the presence of lead in a place. One example where we've done some work here is in Flint, Michigan, where we partnered with the University of Michigan and Georgia Tech and a few other universities. We developed an AI-driven tool to understand when lead pipes -- where they were and how to replace them most efficiently.
The way this worked, by the way, is really interesting. We took a lot of very old -- this wasn't us, this was mostly Georgia Tech researchers who took a large number of old city plans and digitized them, including over 140,000 handwritten building records and then analyzed all this information to figure out what the factors are there to likely predict the presence of lead pipes, so things like the age of a home, the location of a home, the value of a home. All this added up to an algorithm that let these researchers target homes that are likely to have lead pipes at about a 97% success rate. And before doing this intervention, there was an effort to do some remediation in Flint, and about 20% of the houses that were targeted actually did not have lead pipes in them, so it ended up being a cost constraint on local government to address the issue. So by having these kinds of interventions, you can hopefully improve the efficiency of those abatement efforts and save a lot of money but also target your health interventions much more effectively.
Obviously, there's a lot to do with smart cities on decreasing carbon emissions, so in London, for example, existing buildings account for about 80% of the city's carbon emissions. There's a lot of work to be done there, I think, in trying to figure out how do you build more energy-efficient housing and transport solutions, and how do you better capture these potential emissions. There's a tool that we have been working on that's designed to sort of promote smart insulation of housing. Rather that allowing all the heat that naturally occurs in the house, whether from a computer, shower, other areas, leak out of the house, you can better preserve that in the house and basically save on heating bills in the process.
There are a lot of examples of smart cities in the U.S. and elsewhere. I think India has committed to building a hundred smart cities. At the end of 2017, the Indonesian government quadrupled its smart cities program and started apps that enable citizens to report conditions or respond to concerns through apps that are out there.
One interesting sort of issue to highlight here is there is the issue of data deserts that comes up here. There is an example in Boston, Massachusetts, where the city released an app called Street Bump, and the purpose of this app was to have the ability to detect in real-time where there are potholes on the roads of Boston and to fix those potholes quickly. But, of course, to have this app, you into toad have connectivity, you need to have a phone. You also need to have a car. So it turned out that the interventions being triggered by this example were targeted towards wealthy neighborhoods, and very few were happening in neighborhoods where there is not sufficient connectivity or not sufficient sort of usage of the app. (Audio cut out) hoping solutions will emerge by virtue of a technology is no longer a realistic way to think about smart cities. You actually have to do very detailed analysis and solicit participation from the community that you are trying to target. And really understand where the fault lines are within a city and try to understand exactly where an intervention might be useful for one part of the city, but not another, and how do you democratize access to that app.
And I will say a little bit. So I do not work on Sidewalk Labs. I am not an expert on this issue. There is a whole separate team outside of Google that is now actually working on this issue, but I will say a few quick words about it because I think it's an interesting topic. I think the really interesting thing emerging in sidewalk is on the issue of data governance and on privacy. Submitted a set of plans to the province of Ontario last month that were designed to reflect very detailed engagement from the community on what their concerns were and usage of data within the city, say the environment. And the conclusion, I think, which was reflected not just in our own sort of filing but also in comments from the Ontario privacy commissioner, was the interesting way to think about data is sort of like an enabling tool to build things on top on for anybody who wants to build within a city, and so you can think of sort of the urban technology stack sort of like the Internet protocol stack where on the Internet you can use any browser to navigate to any webpage that's being run by any type of Web server. Similarly in the urban environment, we think you should be able to build any application on any data sharing portal or any measurement tool that is generated by any form of connectivity that is tied to the physical environment. So if there are smart traffic lights or if there are smart other installations in the city, we don't want to have inclusive access to that data. We want to make sure that data is open and can be reused by any developer that's certified by the city and by an independent trust to work on that data.
And we've also thought carefully about what kind of privacy impact assessments need to be submitted, not just by us, but by any developer who wants to use this kind of data within the city environment. And we work closely with the City of Toronto to figure out how to structure that relationship.
There are some parallel examples out there. In Barcelona, there is a trusted intermediary in data commons model, and Barcelona has a city operating system that is the city's internal data, data trust, managed by the city's chief data officer. In this model, all of the city's data is pulled into one central repository, sort of a commons, then managed by a trusted intermediary. We think that's a really interesting example of how you can make data publicly available but not make it exclusive and make sure anybody who wants to use this information to build within the city has the ability to do so.
There's API framework management that is called Estonia's X-Road data exchange platform. This is a similar approach where each collector of data stores its own data but it is all standardized and accessed by API that's managed by the trust. Even as you are collecting data, you are feeding it back into a central repository that others can use to build upon that data. The idea is to build a similar structure to the app development ecosystem where you have an API model that allows developers and others to access data for testing and product development and data analytics.
So those are a few examples, I think, of what's happening out there in the smart cities world, but again, I think many of you have more expertise in this area than I do. I am very happy to turn it over and talk about this stuff more in the Q&A. Thank you.
>> LUCA BELLI: Thank you very much, Nicholas. Actually, it's very good to see that Google's vision is also about trying to share the data that are collected, not make it something exclusive, and trying to make it as open as possible. And actually the fact that you consider also the example of Barcelona as a good practice is something very reassuring because actually in our findings of our project also, we consider Barcelona as probably the best practice possible.
So I think that gives us a good segue to keep on with Jhessica while we figure out to the remote connection. I know that both Robert and (?) can hear you, you can prepare to speak that I think would be better to have in the second part of the workshop.
Jhessica, go ahead.
>> JHESSICA REIA: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here with us today. I am going to briefly speak about the rights of smart cities, if you can say so, and it's based on research we have been developing at AFG. Luca and I are coordinators of this research, and it's called discrimination data controlling resilient smart cities. We have been looking at data governance and good practice, as always trying to map the whole legacy around smart cities in Brazil, and it kind of reflects an international scenario, so I have a few thoughts to share with you today. I have been following these discussions in other United Nations forum, and also I have done field work in expos, forums, exhibitions, all kinds of conferences on smart cities happening in Brazil this year, so it's been like endless hours following and doing participant observation, trying to have this ethnographic approach as well so we can be there and see who are speaking about smart cities, which initiatives and policies should be studied, and like trying to listen to people and doing interviews with all the stakeholders we can reach. And also, well, what I have to say basically is as you may know, we have a New Urban Agenda that set guidelines for urban planning, urban policy over the next 20 years. And we have IGF here for United Nations as well, and we need to share the agendas and cooperate more in regards to smart cities and privacy concerns because, like, I haven't seen much of these discussions on smart cities here, and we have a lot to talk about and a lot to catch up in terms of smart cities and these issues here. And we also need to cooperate with the Urban Policy Agenda and discuss what are the challenges that this smart city agenda might face over the next years.
For the first time, the (?) became part of the New Urban Agenda, as well as the smart city was incorporated, and there's also an issue paper that is worth reading. So for the first time, this term is brought into the New Urban Agenda, and it's going to be implemented a lot over the next years. As we know, smart cities are already a reality in many, many cities around the world, and of course they pose many challenges, like privacy, cyber security, and data governance concerns. Luca is going to speak a little bit about the data governance we are looking to. And we also have been wondering what are the costs of efficiency. Usually we see it's a binary between privacy or efficiency, like it may be more efficient, but for whom and at which cost in terms of personal data and privacy for its citizens.
And we also have been looking through a huge lack of social participation, like the lack of civil society engaging in these forums. Partially in Brazil specifically -- I am going to speak about Brazil. That's what we have been studying over this last year. These forums, for example, the spaces where decision-making takes place, they are like quite -- they have all these meetings with VIP, close the doors, so civil society has some issues to engage in these discussions and where the decisions are being made. And also, as I mentioned before, we really need, like, to align our agendas just because everything we discuss here needs to be taken to these forums, and we need to create spaces to discuss all the problematic approaches to big data collection and smart initiatives for cities.
So after Google, I think we have a lot of things to cooperate in the future, and we really, really need to make spaces of discussion and policymaking more diverse, and like I've been in this conference and I saw like endless hours of all white male opinions discussing the future of our cities, and they are not a very diverse environment. We really need to participate more. And I think something that I would suggest and discuss with you, I would be glad to discuss this with you more in the Q&A, like how can we be part of this process and how here at the IGF and folks working with Internet governance could cooperate more in this agenda because it's urgent and it's happening, so like we need to be part of this. And we, like, really need advocacy and serious research on this behind the hype of smart cities. And we start to see things coming through, and like really good research being done, but like we really need to discuss this more critically. And we need to make sure that smart city initiatives will not be used as mechanisms to reproduce exclusion and discrimination, something we have been dealing about in our research and all the field work. And IGF Cities for All, that is such a huge part of the habitat agenda for the next years. We really need to think if our concepts of smart cities are inclusive and if they take a critical take on es and if they are engaging with the public interest as well. And would love to share experience here. Trying to build an observatory of smart cities there at FGV, and trying to engage everyone to discuss these, especially Latin America, and how can we participate in this debate and help foster better smart cities, which includes right to the city, more inclusive, balanced balanced way as well.
Thank you.
>> LUCA BELLI: Excellent. Thank you very much, Jhessica, to highlight that although there are many benefits, there are also still some challenges that have been addressed and that frequently are not, at least from our findings, what is emerging, that frequently they are not really being addressed in an open and democratic way.
I think we can have Olga in this first segment, we have Jogi in remote participation and myself in the second one. Olga, would you care to go ahead?
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Luca. Thank you for inviting me. This is a very important issue, especially for Latin America. You know, about 80% of the population in Latin America live in urban areas, in cities, and we have the largest cities in the world, I would say perhaps in the Americas by far, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires. Also, I was hearing the colleague from Google speaking about connectivity, and Latin America is a very unequal region in terms of the distribution of infrastructure, the distribution of wealth, so there are areas which are very, very rich and very well connected and areas which are not, but you would not believe that that happens also in the cities. So you have very, very wealthy and well-connected neighborhoods, and by side you have very poor neighborhoods all together. So those gaps of connectivity that you were mentioning in cities in Latin America are present all the time. So for building a smart city in our South American region is quite challenging.
So I will share with you some information that I have been gathering. If you check the rankings of smart cities in the world, you will see that Latin America is somehow lagging behind. The problems that we share in our big cities are similar. We have problems with transportation, we have problems with -- how do you say in English? -- trash management. You have problems with security and environment. So those cities in Latin America don't show up very high in the rankings. I have checked several, and we are kind of low. Some cities are showing a little bit higher, and I will share with you what are the cities doing.
So I focus on one list of cities built by University of Navarra in Spain. There are only 5 cities in the first 100 cities, so the top 5 Latin American cities are Buenos Aires where I live, the capital city of Mexico, Medellin in Colombia, and Montevideo. So you have work to do.
So for example, Buenos Aires is a city -- I will mention some things done by the present government. But Buenos Aires is a city surrounded by urban area that acts as a whole as a one city. So it's the 3 million plus 10 million surrounding. It operates as a simple city, one city, but the government and the jurisdiction is different from the city in the middle and the rest of the city surrounding, which brings a lot of complications, you know, in terms of how to organize and manage the resources and the activities.
So what the city of Buenos Aires is doing right now is having big data information for making decisions in relation with different activities in the city. They have, for example, trying to measure quality standards for different activities, privacy regulations, and the analysis of data for cleaning the city, for organ donations. They have 1,000 sensors all over the city to manage the traffic, which traffic in Buenos Aires is not the worst that you can find in the world, but it's becoming more and more complicated. The city has established a lot of -- how do you say in English? -- it's a way only for bicycles. But it's becoming complicated because motorcycles are using the bicycle roads. So the sensors are trying to order the traffic, order some environmental information. They have installed a low-range network, a first of its kind in Latin America for managing all of this information.
I appreciate the intentions of the city in putting all this information as open as possible so researchers and investigators can use it for managing the city. There is a map of free wi-fi. There is a map of shops available. Several applications for transportation, for buses, for bicycles, free bicycles in the city, and how to reach places in the city and also several cultural agendas. You may know that Buenos Aires has a lot of -- it's a city with more theaters in the world, more than New York. So citizens can get all this type of information. Of course, you need connectivity, and you need to have a smartphone for that, but that's a different workshop.
And Santiago, Chile is one of the considered smart cities. Chile has around 5 million inhabitants. It has a real challenge with environmental because of the geography where it's located. It's in a valley. So they have interesting projects with smart grid to manage energy and distribution. They are promoting electromobility within the city. And they have a special training for not only the mayor of Santiago, Chile, but the city mayors in Chile trying to make them understand the value of technology in the cities. And they have a list of companies, shops, and several projects, including security cameras all over the city. And finally, I will mention that Mexico is one of the most challenging cities because it's really huge, 30 million people living in that beautiful city. So they have also a system for helping traffic control and environmental measures and disaster recovery. So that's my comment for the moment, and maybe we can add other comments later. Thank you very much.
>> LUCA BELLI: Thank you very much. So while we figure out the last details of the remote participation, I would like to open briefly the floor after this first segment for a couple of comments, questions. I am pretty sure there are people in the room that are maybe already working on this or maybe want to share some experience. If anyone wants at this point to provide any input or feedback or ask any question, this could be a good moment to ask questions or provide feedback. So is there anyone, if you have a question or a comment, please just raise your hand. Yes, please go ahead.
>> AUDIENCE: Hi. My name is Blain Hagerty, just down the road from the Toronto waterfront project.
I was very interested to come to this panel and hear about this. Just a few comments. Sorry, no questions, but I would be curious to see feedback from it. On the Waterfront Toronto thing, so first of all, if the proposal on data governance that I think the one you are talking about, it wasn't presented to the Government of Toronto, it was presented to the tripartite government body that's responsible for running that part of the area. And the way that all this has come about has actually raised a lot of problems or a lot of issues around the question of data governance and who is setting these policies and what these policies are going to say.
We have been following this since the big, splashy announcement back last November, so about a year ago, and over that time, it's been essentially like pulling teeth to actually get either Sidewalk Labs or Waterfront Toronto to actually discuss data as if it's something important to focus on. Everything else was kind of like the first part of the presentation focusing on all the great things we can do with garbage cans without focusing on who is going to own the data, who is going to control the data, how is the data going to be used, so on and so forth.
When they finally did put out a proposal, I think it's important to note it actually came from Sidewalk Labs and not from Waterfront Toronto. In other words, you have a situation where a vendor is attempting to set policy, and there's a few reasons for that. And it also came in a situation -- it was presented a few days before the Digital Advisory Board for Waterfront Toronto, the government agency, was set to meet. They weren't involved in the setting of this policy and have raised a lot of questions about it. A guy named I think Sean McDonald has an article on Medium if people are interested about the problems with it.
It's really a governance issue, whose role is it to set policy in this area? Is it the role of the vendor to do so? Cards on the table, I don't think so. But the bigger issue from a governance perspective is the fact that Waterfront Toronto, as essentially the entity representing the public interest, does not have the capacity to either develop policy in this area or really, to be frank, understand exactly what they are dealing with. As a result, they have outsourced the setting of the policy to Sidewalk Labs and also to an advisory board. So this is a huge problem. So it's a lot more clear and the politics around it are a lot more complicated. We've had several resignations from the board over issues like that.
Finally, I would also point out too that the other issue around this is intellectual property as well, and this issue remains unsettled, and there's no clarity as well on what Sidewalk Labs' business model is with respect to this project. And finally, I will also note too, in terms of bringing different groups around into this process is that the consultations have been largely -- have been a little bit problematic. For instance, a summer camp for children was passed off as part of the consultation process, and there hasn't -- for something like this, you would expect maybe there would be some kind of online component, but there hasn't really been that. So a lot of problems with the governance. Still very unclear about what the actual process is, how it's working, and what the actual content of the policy is. So a lot of issues.
>> LUCA BELLI: Okay. Thank you for your very detailed comments.
Nicholas, do you want to react directly, or maybe we can take another comment or questions if there are -- are there any other comments or questions in the room?
Yes, do you have -- can you use the mic close to your colleague there? Can you use the mic because we need for the transcript. Sorry.
>> I just have a very little comment. Latin America has just said it's not only Mexico City -- I am from Mexico City -- and the issue is not only the violence, speaking only about Mexico, but Latin America in general. We don't have the money to develop to invest in developing all these kind of technologies. Mexico, for example, is very expensive with its phone calls. Up to last two, three years, was the worst country, as expensive as calling to Iraq. That's another major point we have to highlight because it's not because of the goodwill of any kind of government. It's also the way how are you going to finance that issue.
>> LUCA BELLI: Sure, sure, please go ahead.
>> Thank you very much for your comment, and in developing economies -- and I can speak for Latin America -- Argentina has 30% people under poverty. All these projects about technology in a big city, they are not in the high priority agenda of the city. The city has many or problems, urgencies to deal with. So sometimes it's difficult to -- in spite of the fact that this will enhance, become better life for all the citizens, it becomes complicated to put it in a good agenda list, and it's usually not the highest priority.
>> LUCA BELLI: (Off microphone)
>> AUDIENCE: (Speaking French)
>> LUCA BELLI: To translate, this gentleman is saying that the capacity of the room is limited to the number of chairs, so every person that is standing up or sitting on the ground must leave. I apologize for this. I really apologize for this.
I really apologize for this. I really apologize for all those who are leaving. I am sorry. It doesn't depend on us.
Okay. Well, never-ending surprises at the UN. Does anyone else that has a comfortable chair have a comment or a question?
>> JHESSICA REIA: Let me just comment on this.
>> LUCA BELLI: A comment on this from Jhessica, then you.
>> Yeah, it's really quick. I am sorry, folks, about this. Just like in Brazil, it's very similar. We have been talking to municipalities, and they also mention, like, especially now they are facing so many budget cuts, and like we have priorities and we have like waste management, mobility, and so many issues. If we could prioritize smart initiatives sometimes, we need to feed people, do waste management, and many other things. It's very difficult for the citizens to invest in technology sometimes. So this creates like all these issues with the private sector and the civil society as well.
>> (Off microphone) -- sessions are being live streamed, so people who can't be here in the session can view it over the live channel, it's all being live streamed.
>> LUCA BELLI: It's a very smart solution.
Please, you had a comment.
>> Hi. My name is Albert. I am from Colombia. And I have a question. You referred in your interventions to let's say data mining of massive amounts of people, like for environmental issues and traffic, but can you give us an example of an individual that the money, like GPS tracking, is developing right now?
>> LUCA BELLI: Do you mean an example of service using this right now? You mean not aggregate, but you mean personal data or -- an example of personal data or an example of data that is not aggregate but a single person that is spotted in the crowd?
>> Singular.
>> LUCA BELLI: Okay. Do you want to -- I will have an example on this when I will -- or you can -- so for instance, in -- an example I will mention in Rio de Janeiro, the platforms that provide individual transportation, like Uber or its competitors, like Cabify, they have to share data of each single trip they organize with the Rio de Janeiro administration. So reports on this. And this also includes data on -- may include personal data. They are not anonymized as efficiently as one could do.
So this is an example. If you need other examples, do you want to chip in and provide?
>> JHESSICA REIA: I think maybe in Sao Paulo, the agency that -- the person now elected governor of Sao Paolo, he offered all the data. This caused such a controversy last year, and I think they backed up on this. But he never mentioned if the data would be anonymized or anything, just like offered all the data from the public system in a city with more than 20 million people circulating daily.
>> LUCA BELLI: Okay. So last comment from Jogi, then we will have the second segment.
>> ANTTI POIKOLA: Yes. Hi. My name is Jogi. I am from Finland, and that's a very good question. These individual services versus services for the masses. And obviously, there are differences in different cities, but what I am seeing, for example, in Finland, in some other European cities, there are more and more intention to move also providing the city services individually for the citizens. So it has been traditionally that the city offers the transportation for everybody. There is the public transportation, and they don't even ask who is jumping on the train or bus. But now there is more and more, like there is in the private sector, there is the demand of more personalized services. It applies to the cities as well. And one example is like predicting what kind of needs citizens have. Very simple scenario is that you have a child that is going to school. Whether the city is waiting for you to submit the application for the school place or whether the city is actually prompting you that we know that your child is becoming the age of going to school, here is what we figured out that this would be a school place. Is it good for you? It could be even text message, yes or no. So that's how cities are thinking. It's not yet like the mainstream, but they are moving towards trying to provide better services on individual basis. And of course, that will bring the questions of data protection and privacy into the table, much more than just having trains and buses running on the streets.
>> LUCA BELLI: Okay. Can we have Robert on the -- Robert, can you hear us, and can we -- he is on the Webex platform as well, so can he have presentation rights so that he can also start with his presentation? Robert, can you hear us? I am just asking to be patient for one sec. Okay. It looks like -- Robert, can you hear us? Is the Webex connection working? We have your presentation, Robert, but we cannot hear you.
I suggest that while we figure out how to hear you guys, maybe Jogi, would you mind to be the first speaker of the second segment?
>> ANTTI POIKOLA: Okay. Why not?
So hello again. I am Jogi from Finland. So I work for the Aalto University in Finland, so I have research background, and I have in my given five minutes, I have two goals. One is that you get some idea of what is MyData as an organization. It's a brand-new global nonprofit that was established one month ago. You can go to MyData.org, and I can give you stickers and you can come to talk to me after. I have this T-shirt, and Raoul has also one. Now you have the image. There is something new and happy coming from Finland.
So then the other goal is that I hope that in the context of cities, nobody, after this, will ever again say about ownership of data. That's controversial claim, but I will come back to that. On ownership and data. Those are two goals.
This comes from the idea, as you can perhaps see from the T-shirt, that individuals are in the center. There is lots of data around in the world. If you think of the traditional data protection thinking, for example, there are laws that are put to the organizations that are managing the data. So they need to take care that they are not abusing for individuals so that individuals can have privacy and other rights and liberties in the world of digital data.
So MyData comes from that perspective that, okay, this -- data protection is one axis on the picture, but the other axis the utility of data. If you put these kind of four quadrants, there are the really bad big data giants that don't care about privacy and data protection at all, but they are very good at using data. Without any name dropping here, you know them. Then there is this super strict European GDPR regime that some even say that it will kill all the innovation from Europe and we will be like lagging behind because it's too strict. So that's protecting very carefully the citizens. And which think there is lots of good data that could be benefitting citizens themselves. If the city is collecting data about me, maybe that can be helpful for me. It's not only bad thing that somebody collects death on me. But then how to use that data, it should be with my will so that it's actually benefitting me so that I can control what that data is used for. So kind of getting the utility of data through individual control. That's the basic idea of my data, not saying that data protection is useless or bad, but kind of starting to climb up from that good security to -- climbing up the ladder so that I could get access to my data, I could decide where to use it so that I could benefit from my data. That's the idea.
And yes, MyData global, we have been running conferences for a couple of years in Helsinki, and we started to connect with people like Luca from Brussels, who have been thinking for a long time in the same way, and MyData just gave the nice logo and brand for the thinking that's happening all over the world, and we are connecting -- there's now, I think, 27 local hubs in different cities, including Toronto, so I think Sidewalk Labs is an important topic there.
So we got established as a nonprofit one month ago. We have day after tomorrow in Barcelona first general meeting, so if you still want to join, you can be one of the founding members until 15th of November, then it's closed. Then you have a chance to be normal member, but not any more founding member. So last chance.
Anyways, that's my first point, MyData, everybody remember now. Okay.
Second topic, why I say data ownership is not really the right paradigm. We have been attaching the points of governance. Everybody's screening for getting better governance of data so that we could match the benefits from data, making it usable, having the public interest represented but also protecting the privacy and security, et cetera. And one problem inside the governance problem is people are shouting that there should be clear ownership of data. That's plainly wrong, and there are reasons for that because data, it's called non-rival assets. Basically -- non-rival assets. Basically, if I have data, it is not to say Luca could not know the same thing. Albert Einstein said that if I know something -- if I have ten pennies and I give you ten pennies, I am ten pennies more poor. But if I know something and if I tell that to you, you know it also. You are one more knowledge bit richer, but I still have my knowledge. That's the basic idea. Data and knowledge, it's not a rival thing. Ownership, on the other hand, that's a paradigm that explicitly says that it's exclusive. Either I own it or you own it. Let's stick to the basics. Ownership says that it's exclusive.
I will give an example from personal data view. Maybe there is a city of Helsinki that collects data on me that is done by systems that are implemented by, let's say, Google or IBM or somebody else. So then there are three parties. Who should own that data? The ones who provide infrastructure, the city, or me? No one. That's the thing. Ownership is not the way to start even the discussion because it only gives the barriers. The real question is that who should have rights to learn about the data when we go to the AI thinking, tapped doesn't say that if I can learn about my data that City of Helsinki collected that Helsinki could not learn about that. So that's the thing. Maybe the infrastructure vendor has some legitimate rights to learn about this. They are developing their algorithms. Why not if it's not causing harm for the people or the city? So it's not inclusive.
We need to forget about the ownership speaking because that's just blocking our minds, and in MyData, we are very much interested in developing, for example, Barcelona Data Trust thing is interesting. In Helsinki and Leon, there are examples of cities starting to provide these MyData wallets for the citizens so they could collect their data. That's MyData infrastructure. Forget about ownership.
That's my end of speech. Thank you, everybody.
>> LUCA BELLI: Thank you very much, Jogi, for being always very inspiring and clear.
Now, can we have finally Robert and Phil?
>> (Off microphone)
>> LUCA BELLI: Okay. So can we have them? okay. Well, sorry, I can go ahead. I will try to be brief so that then we can have time for Robert and Phil and for comments.
So actually, what I want to say is very well connected with what Jogi was saying, also what the previous presentations were saying, which is basically the fact that first of all, when we speak about smart cities, we have to understand it is a very elastic concept, and a lot of things are labeled as smart cities. And to my students, I used to say that when there is something -- when we use the word "smart" it may also entail that there is some dumb somewhere else. It is good to try to question what has been labeled as "smart" things or smart cities.
So when we speak about smart cities, we generally assume that there is an increase in efficiency that is driven by the collection and processing of data. It could be personal data, anonymized data, or regular data, for instance, on sewage or trash, which do not really encompass personal data. They may be aggregate in big data analytics, and you don't even know what you are looking for and you will discover it. Or they may be targeted for specific purposes, for specific objective. For instance, to reduce traffic, to enhance the quality of the air, or reduce problems with sewage. Actually, sewage and water management is one of the key priorities both of the habitat agenda and identified by the UN as one of the key priorities also particularly for Latin America.
The analysis that we have been conducting with regard to Brazil and especially Rio, Sao Paulo, shows that many things branded as smart cities, they usually encompass the collection and use of data, but maybe sometimes they are not so smart, and maybe sometimes are -- although Brazil comes from a very democratic participatory tradition in terms of city management, Brazil has been pioneering, for instance, participatory budgeting where the budget of the city, at least part of it, is discussed participatory since the early 2000s, and that has been one of the first countries producing this, but that is lacking with regard to smart cities. So although one would expect in Brazilian cities to have this kind of new potentially very beneficial services being implemented as a result of public consultations, those public consultations are usually lacking, and in the case of Rio, which has been over the past ten years considered one of the smartest cities in the world because it started to do extensive and intensive use of data collection for services, there has not been any consultation at all. Actually, the smart cities services were implemented out of need, primarily due to the events, organized, John Paul II Pope coming to Rio and five years later the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics only two years ago, so the city of Rio had to manage an extreme variety not only of data of people in the most efficient way. A colleague of ours was the person that designed the Rio war room for data, the data control management service, and the Rio administration.
But what they had in mind was efficiency. It was not data protection, data control. I like the MyData philosophy of not being the owner but being the one that controls data. Actually, I also published one year ago -- and it was like that, I met Robert and Phil -- I participated in this work from the World Health Organization, the Health Technology Journal. There was this collection directed by Robert on privacy and the challenges with regard to medical data. And what I have written in this -- in my chapter is precisely that you don't -- we don't -- we have to move from the paradigm of data protection and go to the paradigm of data control because it's too fuzzy to speak about privacy and data protection. Data protection usually encompasses a binary choice, either you give your data or you do not give them. So you protect them if you don't give them. If you give them, you lose protection. That is not -- it is not a sustainable choice. What is sustainable is to have different nuances. I can give my data for this purpose, I can give my data to these actors. I have to have choice. This is precisely what MyData is trying also to implement.
Coming back to the example of Rio de Janeiro, I wanted to illustrate this very briefly. A decree that has been adopted by the current administration only four months ago on how to regulate the private transportation intermediated via apps, so for Uber and its competitors. As Olga was mentioning, traffic is one of the main problems in Latin American cities. I was mentioning before to the gentleman that asked the question that this really illustrates to me the mentality of doing something that is supposed to be smart but without having data protection as a priority. So the administration adopted this decree, and according to this, all the companies providing private transportation via apps, they have to share periodically reports on all the trips that have been initiated, terminated or not, and data about everything, basically. We gave them administration that can generally be implemented as policies. In terms of objective, of purpose is already quite fuzzy. Although the decree states that the data have to be managed respecting privacy of users, there is absolutely no obligation to request consent or to inform of the purposes the users whose data are utilized. So those that are pillars of that protection are not mentioned by this decree. And although there is a general data protection legislation that has just been adopted in Brazil, it will enter into force in only two years. So we can assume that right now the personal data of individuals are collected, shared with the administration, processed, but there is no duty to communicate how they are processed and to request consent for further utilization. And the cherry on top is that there is no security obligation. So if those data are collected, processed, and shared with the administration, then there is no security obligation and there is no sanction in case those existing obligations are not respected.
So this is just to illustrate that of course the processing of data may have a lot of benefits for the citizens of Rio de Janeiro. They may have much more efficient traffic. But it may also entail a lot of risks, and not considering at all those risks, it's a fault. It's really a fault.
So the two messages I wanted to communicate are the need for consultation, informed consultation -- and also the gentleman from Toronto was stressing that this is a very fundamental pillar of smart cities -- and also the need to communicate how data are utilized and allow citizens to choose how they want their data to be utilized.
I see some noise. Do we have --
>> (Off microphone).
>> LUCA BELLI: Yes, sure we can try. Yes, please try. Excellent.
>> Can you hear us, Robert? Can you say something?
>> LUCA BELLI: Robert or Phil, if you can hear us, say something so that we know if you are communicating with us.
>> Phil is waving his hand.
>> LUCA BELLI: Yes, it's him. JPN is him. He is waving hi. Phil is waving his hand. Do we have the possibility to have him speaking?
Well, okay. Well, unfortunately, due to technical problems, we will not be able to have remote presentations. Well, you can keep on trying while we take --
>> (Off microphone).
>> LUCA BELLI: Okay. We have to reboot the computer. So if you want, we can reboot the computer while we take comments because I am sure that people here -- yes, please go ahead. There and there, yes.
>> Hi. My name is Katherine Tai. Thank you, all the panelist, for great presentations. I have learned a lot about smart cities. My husband also did a lot of smart cities and work on it at the World Bank for a while.
So my question -- please excuse my ignorance because I am definitely no expert on this topic. So my question is about undemocratic countries, when they are implementing smart city plans or they are trying to explore smart city plans also in other democratic countries, what should we talk about? What are the right questions for us to ask in terms of data governance? Because you talk a lot about data ownership, right, so you say that's not the right question to ask, and then what are the right questions for us to ask?
>> LUCA BELLI: Can I just provide an immediate reaction, and then gentleman there.
So I think something that we should understand is that there are some very good practices, like the City of Barcelona, where -- and they are really -- I think they are the best example of smart city in the world because they are not only trying to use all data possible to provide efficient services, but also to use them in a sustainable way, meaning that as Nicholas was saying, there is a chief technology officer that is orchestrating all of this. What is very important is data are not given for free to other corporations that then store them in silos. They are managed by the city, and then others can have access. So there is a sort of a trustee, a fiduciary that manages the data and then others can have access. And this is the best model. Unfortunately, as you point out, that is not the rule. It's not the general rule. It's an exception. That is why we consider it the best practice because it is exceptional.
Very frequently, administrations, either because they do not have the financial capability, as Olga also was saying and also the lady that had to go away was saying, either they don't have the financial capability or it is simply not a priority or they simply do not know how to do it. And so they are easily seduced by corporations saying, well, you know what? We can make this very efficient and smart if we can collect all the data and then provide the service. And that doesn't always come with the possibility for people to keep on using data. It may come with the possibilities only of extracting data and then shaping how data are used based on the corporation's policy without consulting the local stakeholders. And that is something I think we should try to avoid if we want to keep the smart cities sustainable cities. So the thing is that both models are possible -- the model in which people and citizens retain control of their data, and the model where they simply become data producers and other entities utilize their data. The first one is, of course, the -- in my opinion, the model which we should strive to achieve. The other one, unfortunately, is the general rule, but I think this happens for the lack -- because these kind of conversations are lacking.
Please go ahead. There was a gentleman that is waiting since 20 minutes.
>> No, I think you haven't finished your explanation? If you haven't finished, just finish it.
>> LUCA BELLI: Please go ahead.
>> Okay. I was wondering what is -- because I have several questions. When you say open data, is it about the -- is it including data processing or only data collection?
>> (Off microphone).
>> AUDIENCE: Test, test. When we talk about open data, is it about the data processing as well or only about data collection? And then how do you see (audio cutting out) portability about the use of data? Do you think it answers a little bit about how we can use the personal data, for example, in open data, rather than become barriers for innovation, is this actually helping people to do innovation?
And then I think the concern of ownership and so on, I think it's because it started -- people start to think that data is extended of our body, so it relates to our reputation if people know certain of the type of information about us. So does it mean that from the comments that have been made here, does it mean that we need to reduce our privacy as the technology is increasing, we are increasingly relying on technology in order for us to survive? And also I was wondering about the ethics, how do you see the ethics adding more to the regulation or is it more like will be better between ethics and regulation? And we also need to look that it's the same like how the law works everywhere. I think it's how we implement the e-government, including open data here, it can be different in different parts of the world because sometimes it's also culture makes the law itself. So how do you see the standard because there is like some people said democratic country, and I think you will also maybe give how the open data should be implemented maybe from the policy and legal framework, and then do you see that because open data and smart cities as a part of implementation of open data is implementation of the smart city, do you think that --
>> LUCA BELLI: I think you had a lot of questions.
>> Okay. So --
>> LUCA BELLI: Do you have a final comment?
>> Okay. Just a few words. So do you think it's -- to get referendum or get consensus in the public about how open data should be applied? Thank you.
>> LUCA BELLI: I see Jogi has an initial comment.
>> ANTTI POIKOLA: I will try to answer some of the questions. First of all, what are the questions we should be asking --
>> Especially undemocratic countries. When they are implementing smart city plans and promoting smart city model overseas, then what are the right questions for us to ask? So the key word is undemocratic countries.
>> ANTTI POIKOLA: I think if there is undemocratic country, it has some challenges in this domain that are different, but the principles were to aim. I think even undemocratic countries and cities probably do the stuff for the best of the community. It might not end up like that, but basically, I doubt that anybody really wants to kill their citizens or do a bad thing. And there I think what is an undemocratic governance, the strongholder is the government or the city government. So they tend to think that okay, we own the data. We can do whatever about it because we know the best how to use it best for the society. And in some other place it might be that the private company thinks they know best how to use it. And in some democratic countries, oh, nobody knows. We just need to make the referendum and figure out the rules. But basically it's still a governance problem, how to get the data best to support the society. That's the basic question. And there still the ownership is not the best way because it limits who can actually make use of the data. So basically, undemocratic governances can also open the data to be used by their own citizens and make open data when there is no privacy limitations. That would be my guidance, but I mean, it's probably difficult.
Then for you I just wanted to comment that definitely this question is about processing the data. Collection is becoming less and less and less important in these debates because data is just being collected so much, the focus is moving to where it is used and whether that use is ethical and acceptable. So more focus on actually using of the data than collecting, and GDPR Article 20, everybody should know that's a nice article that people can have access to their own data in digital format. It's in the law. Probably it doesn't change too much unless we build good technology to support it. And Raoul is one of the masterminds. He is running a course, a MOOC course, to educate people to use that right.
>> I also will highlight Article 6 that authorizes code of conduct around portability of data. I think that's one of the ways to think about putting an individual in control of the data is by giving them the authority to switch providers if they are frustrated or dissatisfied with whatever current hosted data they are using. They can easily switch to any provider without any restrictions on that.
>> ANTTI POIKOLA: And that's interesting when Luca mentioned about the Uber thing, now the platforms are trying to restrict as much as possible people changing from one platform to another, and that comes really problematic if a city, for example, decides that, okay, let's buy these services from somebody, and then city kind of forcefully locks people into using one platform if there is no fluidity for people to change.
>> LUCA BELLI: In this case, the problem the lady there was mentioning becomes double because you have potentially undemocratic country exploiting the same surveillance that the -- it's efficient surveillance, not efficient management of the city.
Sorry. Okay. You were first?
>> I have no idea.
>> LUCA BELLI: Go ahead.
>> Is it working? I work for the City of Amsterdam, and we do a lot on data privacy. I mean, we have open data project, it's like in our official policies that we should protect data. We don't allow wi-fi tracking, et cetera. So there's a lot we are doing. But there's only so much we can do as a smart city, like the example of Barcelona as well. While, of course, big corporations, they own like I don't know how much percent, let's say 90% of all data that's relevant. So my question also to Jogi is, like, of course, whether it's in an undemocratic country or whether you are facing big corporations, in either case, the access of individual to the data or public data that would be the solution, and even in the GDPR it says we are allowed to access our data, right, and even to remove the data. So we already have these rights. But my question is Lou can we start to implement this? How can we start to demand this? Yeah, how to do it.
>> LUCA BELLI: Before we take other comments, I will provide a quick comment on this. In the GDPR or other regulatory framework, the right to access means you have a right to know what a corporation or a data controller or an entity that is collecting your data, what data does he have. With the portability, you have the right to download your data, but that doesn't mean that you have -- it's still binary. It's still binary. It's still -- you can know it or not. You can download it or not. But you cannot ask the corporation to use them according to your will. And you cannot -- and even when you download it, maybe the format you download it is useless because -- for instance, if you want to download your Facebook data, you will download the data in text, which is useless, literally useless. So yes, you have downloaded a lot of data, but you cannot use them. So it's a matter not only of portability, it's also a matter of interoperable formats that allow you to exploit you data. Right to access is very good, but that only allows you to know what kind of data someone has on you, not decide how to use them.
>> I will say on that point we've had a long-term project called Google Take Out, where it allows you to take out your data. But we know there is a problem where you can't port it into a different program. We have a new project designed to remove those obstacles and make it easier to transport to a competing provider.
>> LUCA BELLI: Jogi, you wanted to have a quick comment. Then we have the gentleman here and here.
>> ANTTI POIKOLA: Quick comment on that. Yes, data portability clause is in the law. It's not in the software yet. That's the problem. It will be there. And as people caring about the governance, there is a looming risk that even if I say that it's really good that people can have their data, hopefully in usable format in the future, there is also the caveat that maybe if nothing changes in the dominant business models, it just will mean that yes, I agree to the terms of service problem will be exploding. So basically, for example, the Data Transfer Project, it's between Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. So now the motivation for me to take out something from Google, it's low because there's nothing where I can put it. Okay? Now there is the Data Transfer Project that says, okay, if you take something out of it, you can put it up, and basically it works automatically. So you can give permission to copy data over. So easily you can imagine this ending up that if Google knew about my data this much and Facebook knew about this much and Amazon knows about this much, after this project, everybody knows this much because they all cross, and this is just like our data is spreading everywhere, and that's not really controlled either. So it's very one-sided control. And we need to develop kind of meaningful ways of tying more the control to the actual use of data. This is still the control of collecting and sharing, but what is really interesting is how and where and why the data is used, and that's where we need individual control.
>> I would argue that's where the right to deletion comes in, after you transfer the data out, you can then delete it from the original service.
>> LUCA BELLI: I would also argue that is still binary. Either you erase data or you let someone use the data, so it's not really yet control.
There was a gentleman there kindly waiting since ten minutes, then here. Can you use the mic, please?
>> I am (audio distorted.) I have a stupid question and would like to get a smart answer, please. You talk about public consultations. Is it about online consultation or face-to-face consultation with NGOs, et cetera? I would like to get your feedback. Thanks.
>> We need to have in mind that in Brazil only around 50% of households have connectivity. It's an issue in Brazil. So We cannot rely only in online consultations. We need face to face. Especially in smaller or mid-size towns or cities, we need to go there and talk to people. Publicly, consultations done online are a good mechanism and a good tool for sure, but we need to do this and engage people in policymaking locally as well, I'd say offline, for example, even if you are talking about smart cities. I'd say for like grass roots and social participation, we need to foster participation in all means we can.
>> For the Sidewalk Project in Toronto, we have run three public consultations. Actually on YouTube if you want to watch them. They are pretty fascinating documents of hearing concerns and grievances from the community and trying to incorporate the response to those into our proposal. I think they are worth a watch.
>> LUCA BELLI: Also another point. I think what is key, again, not to have just the label consultation and you check it. It depends which kind of consultation. What is, for instance, key is to provide objective information on what are the costs and benefits of the smart city services you want to implement. For instance, what would be very good is this consultation having academics, people already studying the issue, explain -- introducing the topics before the consultation and highlighting as objectively as possible what could be the cost, how the service would work, and what could be the costs and benefits so that it is an informed consultation. Because I mean, you can request the feedback that know nothing about what you are going to do, and they will not be able to express their will freely because they are biased. They don't know what are the risks or the benefits. So it's very important to provide objective material ahead.
The lady there.
>> Hi, everyone. My name is Prita from Indonesia. I have a little background of urban planning, so I am really concerned about the smart cities and dumb cities as well. I want to add a quick comment for the question about the right question to ask about smart cities. I think there's also a question about what are the priorities and how open should open data be because with all the buzzing words about smart cities, tendency of seeing ICT and data as a main ends, not as a tool to provide efficiency and things like that. Because there would be -- another good thing if we have data collection, good data processing and governance, but at the same time excluding the citizens that have a digital gap or even doesn't know how to use the open data like that.
>> Thank you. I am Helga from the Oslo Ministry of Transport, Innovation, and Technology. From my point of view, we are not only talking about (?) or perhaps about data, but our focus would be public benefit, public service, public good, and this should be based on a human rights-based approach. A human rights-based approach is essential for us, something that has been agreed on European level as well, also on rule of law. Human rights and rule of law are essential. Thanks.
>> LUCA BELLI: I think that was probably the best way to close our panel. Do panelists have any further remarks to wrap up? Please, Jogi, go ahead.
>> ANTTI POIKOLA: Yeah, just very quickly to these last two comments which reflect the same, like, looking the smart city development from the end goals, not from the yes, we have the ICT, yes, we have the data. And from MyData perspective, it would be kind of human-centric city development, asking like okay, what kind of needs, what kind of life events this person has, and then starting to -- taking that as a starting point, I think the consultancy questions come much more naturally.
I think the whole smart city, I think the label was given by some tech companies coming to sell infrastructure and solutions and these centers to Rio. That's coming from very much an organizational perspective. If you change the perspective to human centric, you are probably not speaking about smart cities; you are just speaking about cities normally. So human centric. That's it.
>> LUCA BELLI: Okay. Excellent. So I would like to thank you for the very interesting comments and feedback. Apologize again for those who have been kicked out by the UN guards so they could not stand up. So thank you very much, and well, I hope you will have time to interact and exchange more on this topic. Thank you.