{"id":3695,"date":"2020-07-15T08:45:23","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T08:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/?p=3695"},"modified":"2020-10-07T18:36:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T18:36:00","slug":"smart-cities-in-the-time-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/2020\/07\/15\/smart-cities-in-the-time-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart Cities in the Time of COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nImage source:\u00a0petovarga<\/a>, via\u00a0Adobe Stock<\/a>\u00a0(standard license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Summary of Updates<\/strong><\/p>\n

In recent months, communities across the globe have experimented with adapting smart city technologies in response to the outbreak of COVID-19. Digital solutions created to better manage public safety, transportation, energy use, and other aspects of urban infrastructure are now being used for epidemiological surveillance, public health communication, strategic planning, and policy monitoring and evaluation with the aim of mitigating the effects of the ongoing pandemic.<\/p>\n

Given the virus\u2019s long\u00a0incubation period<\/a>, digital contact tracing has emerged as a method of tracking, and thus slowing, its spread. Digital contact tracing \u2014 distinct from, and potentially complementary to, human-driven contact tracing by questionnaire \u2014 has been a component of national public health responses, with varying outcomes, in\u00a0Singapore<\/a>,\u00a0South Korea<\/a>, and\u00a0India<\/a>.\u00a0Oxford Business Group<\/a>\u00a0called South Korea\u2019s Smart City Data Hub \u201cone of the most successful demonstrations of the power of smart city technologies\u201d by virtue of its role in \u201crapidly reduc[ing] infection rates without a full lockdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

National and local authorities worldwide have also been exploring the feasibility of using drones in the fight against COVID-19. In\u00a0China<\/a>,\u00a0Spain<\/a>,\u00a0France<\/a>,\u00a0Italy<\/a>, and\u00a0Western Australia<\/a>, police forces launched drones to issue public service announcements via loudspeaker urging individuals to adhere to public health regulations. Public health authorities in\u00a0Oman<\/a>,\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>,\u00a0Colombia<\/a>, and\u00a0Connecticut<\/a>\u00a0have experimented with using drones to detect high body temperatures that could be symptomatic of COVID-19. Drones were also reportedly used to spray disinfectant in public spaces in\u00a0China<\/a>,\u00a0India<\/a>, and\u00a0Indonesia<\/a>. Meanwhile,\u00a0Draganfly Inc.<\/a>\u00a0partnered with a police department in Westport, Connecticut to conduct\u00a0a social distancing measurement test program<\/a>, using drone technology to gather real-time \u201canonymized\u201d data on social distancing practices. However, the validity of each of these approaches has been questioned due to performance accuracy issues, additional health hazards posed, or public concern over privacy issues.<\/p>\n

Smart city solutions have also been adapted for public health planning, monitoring, and evaluation purposes by leveraging data from multiple sources within an urban environment. In March,\u00a045 Indian smart city command and control centers were transformed<\/a>\u00a0into the nerve centers for operations to contain the spread of the virus. In the same month, the United Arab Emirates had a \u201claboratory testing facility\u201d for COVID-19 built in Abu Dhabi\u2019s\u00a0Masdar City<\/a>, the\u00a0Financial Times<\/a>\u00a0reported. Furthermore, nearly 30\u00a0United Nations<\/a>\u00a0entities have leveraged innovative approaches to respond to the pandemic, with many launching online dashboards with real-time information on COVID-19 cases and related topics ranging from food security to the labor market.<\/p>\n

One New Scientific Discovery<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Newcastle University Urban Observatory<\/a>, which\u00a0\u201cmakes use of thousands of sensors and data sharing agreements\u201d to monitor movement, \u201cenergy consumption, air quality, climate, and many other variables\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, has been using smart city technology to study social distancing. They developed \u201calgorithms that can automatically measure social distancing in public areas,\u201d making it \u201cpossible to identify bottlenecks where social distancing cannot be maintained, and [determine] how citizens adapt as restrictions are imposed or lifted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three Companies\/Products to Watch<\/strong><\/p>\n

Draganfly Inc.<\/a>, a Canadian company that has been in the unmanned aerial vehicle industry since the 1990s, has launched a\u00a0global dealer network<\/a>\u00a0that includes US and Canadian dealers and has attracted \u201cinterest from entities in Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitie Security<\/a>, a UK-based facilities management company, has launched a suite of fever-screening solutions that detect the temperature of individuals as they enter public spaces, hospitals, retail locations, and other buildings.<\/p>\n

Technology companies\u00a0Cradlepoint<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Rigado<\/a>\u00a0are \u201cjoin[ing] forces to provide a flexible IoT-based safe workplace solution<\/a>\u201d to help US organizations and businesses get back into their traditional workspaces while adhering to US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) safety guidelines.<\/p>\n

Three Fundings\/Approvals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amid debate on\u00a0political risks<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0privacy concerns,<\/a>\u00a0Alabama, South Carolina, and North Dakota have committed to using Apple and Google\u2019s\u00a0application programming interface (API)<\/a>\u00a0to create Bluetooth-enabled \u201cexposure notification\u201d applications.<\/p>\n

The drone company\u00a0Zipline<\/a>, which first\u00a0launched a national drone-delivery service in partnership with the Government of Rwanda<\/a>, recently made its US debut \u201cferrying COVID-19 supplies to hospitals in North Carolina run by Novant Health,\u201d according to\u00a0Axios<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scandit<\/a>, a Zurich-based international mobile data capture technology company, has raised $80 million in Series C funding as the pandemic has increased demand for \u201ccontactless solutions,\u201d including \u201capp-based [barcode] scanning, text recognition, object recognition and [augmented reality] solutions that work on camera-equipped mobile devices,\u201d according to\u00a0Mobile Marketer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Challenges to Consider<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of the challenges inherent in the use of smart city technologies to counter COVID-19 have been illustrated in the experimentation with drones. The deployment of drone technology in \u201ca range of applications during the pandemic\u201d has raised the need for \u201cmore critical thinking\u201d about how they can add value in this context, WeRobotics Executive Director Patrick Meier argued in a\u00a0World Economic Forum article<\/a>. The same could be said of all of the smart city technologies that have been presented as digital solutions to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most fundamental challenge inherent in the adoption of a smart cities technology to counter COVID-19 is to ensure that the digital \u201csolution\u201d being presented does in fact help, rather than harm, public health. The use of drones to spray disinfectant, which may have posed more\u00a0health hazards<\/a>\u00a0than it mitigated, is a case in point.<\/p>\n

An additional challenge pertains to the performance accuracy of artificially intelligent technologies. If a technology, when tested, cannot meet a certain threshold of accuracy in performing its intended function, its developers may opt \u2014 or be instructed \u2014 continue working on the technology instead of deploying it. Such was the case of the\u00a0Omani temperature-taking drones<\/a>, which reportedly faced difficulty recording the temperature of people in an outside environment. However, virtually no advanced machine-learning technology is exempt from some margin of error. Ultimately, the choice of just how much \u2014 and what kind \u2014 of error is to be considered \u201cacceptable\u201d is, in the context of public health, a public policy question.<\/p>\n

In an argument suggesting that accuracy is liable to be sacrificed in favor of urgency, University of Melbourne researchers Dr. Niels Wouters and Dr. Ryan Kelly warned against the use of facial recognition tools to detect COVID-19 in their article \u201cThe danger of surveillance tech post COVID-19.\u201d False positives are likely to occur, they argue, especially if the datasets that these tools are trained on are \u201ctoo small\u201d or \u201chaphazardly developed.\u201d (They give the potential example of someone falsely classified as feverish who has an \u201celevated temperature\u201d not from COVID-19 but rather from overexertion during \u201ca weekly grocery run\u201d). Furthermore, the stakes of being falsely labeled COVID-19-positive may be much higher in some countries than others. In democratic countries, such individuals may simply undergo \u201ccompulsory self-quarantine,\u201d but elsewhere, governments \u201cmay decide to publicly shame\u201d them \u201cor limit their freedom to move,\u201d they posit.<\/p>\n

In an argument suggesting that accuracy is liable to be sacrificed in favor of urgency,\u00a0University of Melbourne<\/a>\u00a0researchers Dr. Niels Wouters and Dr. Ryan Kelly warn against the use of facial recognition tools to detect COVID-19 in their article \u201cThe danger of surveillance tech post COVID-19.\u201d False positives are likely to occur, they argue, especially if the datasets that these tools are trained on are \u201ctoo small\u201d or \u201chaphazardly developed.\u201d (They give the potential example of someone falsely classified as feverish who has an \u201celevated temperature\u201d not from COVID-19 but rather from overexertion during \u201ca weekly grocery run\u201d). Furthermore, the stakes of being falsely labeled COVID-19-positive may be much higher in some countries than others. In democratic countries, such individuals may simply undergo \u201ccompulsory self-quarantine,\u201d but elsewhere, governments \u201cmay decide to publicly shame\u201d them \u201cor limit their freedom to move,\u201d they posit.<\/p>\n

Classic privacy concerns have also surfaced as a significant challenge surrounding the use of facial recognition, contact-tracing, and other technologies that involve the collection of personal data.\u00a0Wouters and Kelly<\/a>\u00a0argue that contact-tracing applications raise \u201cunanswered legal, constitutional, and democratic questions.\u201d In an article published by the\u00a0Brookings Institution<\/a>, Professors Julie E. Cohen, Woodrow Hartzog, and Laura Moy warn, \u201cContact tracing done wrong threatens privacy and invites mission creep into adjacent fields, including policing.\u201d They note that the business models of the private-sector technology platforms adopted by public health departments \u201cmagnify the risks of data leakage\u201d despite assuring users in their privacy policies that no data sharing will occur. Two such instances of data leakage have already occurred with North and South Dakota\u2019s Care19 app and China\u2019s Alipay Health Code, according to the article.<\/p>\n

The authors of the\u00a0Brookings Institution article<\/a>\u00a0raise an additional, overarching concern: the risks entailed in ceding authority in the pandemic response to private-sector technology firms. They argue that \u201cuncritical deference\u201d to private-sector solutions is \u201ccounterproductive\u201d because it lets \u201cinsufficiently regulated platforms\u201d define \u201ckey values,\u201d \u201cdeepens preexisting patterns of inequality in society,\u201d and \u201cignores\u201d the technology industry\u2019s \u201crole in driving public polarization and amplifying the misinformation and disinformation that undermine public-health efforts.\u201d Instead, they propose \u201ccollaboration around human-centered public-health surveillance\u201d with \u201cstrong data protection mandated by law and extending into emergency response systems,\u201d as well as \u201cdeeper, more structural reforms regulating the platforms themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image source:\u00a0petovarga, via\u00a0Adobe Stock\u00a0(standard license) Summary of Updates In recent months, communities across the globe have experimented with adapting smart city technologies in response to the outbreak of COVID-19. Digital solutions created to better manage public safety, transportation, energy use, and other aspects of urban infrastructure are now being used for epidemiological surveillance, public health<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[41,36,42,43,32],"class_list":{"0":"post-3695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-trends","8":"tag-cities","9":"tag-covid-19","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-smart-cities","12":"tag-technology"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1_tuiVXfoCRitcBoNq8Z_xGg.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3695"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3755,"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695\/revisions\/3755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ttconf.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}