Public Opinion Often Sets Privacy Standards for Smart City Tech

 As cities have begun to collect and release unprecedented amounts of data, questions about citizen privacy have become increasingly relevant. Local governments, for their part, often lack specific privacy policies and rely on checks such as community outcry, industry best practices and guidance from law professors to dictate the limits of their work.  This was an overarching topic at many panels during the recent MetroLab Annual Summit, where featured speakers included municipal tech leaders, nationally renowned law professors, privacy advocates and leaders of smart city tech companies, among others. What emerged was a sense that local governments are increasingly aware of privacy considerations; that they are interested in de-identifying the data they collect; and that they only want data that will help with the work of improving services. Technology and innovation, however, can tend to outpace efforts to establish firm checks on privacy.