In this brief, the authors outline the risks that smart city technologies pose to human rights as set out in Canadian law. At the fundamental level, local government staff must uphold human rights or otherwise risk legal repercussions and public backlash. In a more proactive framing, this brief explores smart city projects from a different point of view — from the perspective of rights. This brief focuses specifically on the following rights: equality and discrimination; privacy and surveillance; and freedom of expression and association.
Maintaining human rights is central to creating an Open Smart Community and this brief is a resource for local government staff to address the complex challenges that come with implementing data-centric technologies into their programs and operations. Core to an Open Smart Community is that residents engage in policy-making, and decision-makers drive outcomes that promote the public good. Maintaining equality, privacy, and freedom of expression is key to ensuring trust between decision-makers and the public, as is hearing the diverse needs of residents. This brief provides information to guide decision-makers to consider a human rights lens to ensure they are creating an environment of trust, engagement, and a better future.
About the Research Brief series
This series of research briefs has been produced for the Community Solutions Network, a community-centric platform for communities to connect and build a national centre of excellence in Open Smart Communities. As the project lead, Evergreen works with its lead technical partner, Open North, and other partners to provide valuable information, learning opportunities, advisory and capacity building services to Canadian communities in key areas of data and technology, helping to improve the lives of residents.