SCC-PG: Trust, transparency and technology: Building digital equity through a civic digital commons

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Smart city platforms–encompassing mobile apps, cameras, sensors, algorithms, and predictive analytics—generate troves of data on residents. Research suggests that excessive surveillance reinforces a sense of insecurity and leads residents to fear civil liberties violations, particularly among communities of color. Our digital rights platform will empower community members by granting them agency over how the City collects, uses and stores their personal data. The platform will be designed collaboratively with hundreds of Long Beach residents participating in a civic user testbed and other qualitative data collection. The platform will feature text and open-source iconography that visually conveys how the City of Long Beach uses specific technologies, what data these technologies collect and how the City utilizes that data. We plan to strategically deploy signage across Long Beach, physically adjacent to or digitally embedded within civic technologies, e.g., sensors, cameras, mobile payment kiosks, a 311 app. The platform will include a QR code or hyperlink that take users to an online dashboard where they may learn additional details, update data collection preferences, and share comments and concerns with local officials—giving residents a clear understanding of how local government collects, analyzes, shares, and retains their personal data. This digital rights platform will feature text and the open-source iconography that visually conveys how the City of Long Beach uses specific smart technologies, what data these technologies collect and how the City utilizes that data. The platform considers the technical, legal, ethical, and spatial aspects of smart technologies. Grounded in frameworks of trust and contextual integrity, the project is focused on the City’s vision to use data in ethical ways that avoid reinforcing existing racial biases and discriminatory decision-making. Specifically, we plan to strategically deploy signage across Long Beach, physically adjacent to or digitally embedded within civic technologies, e.g., sensors, cameras, mobile payment kiosks, a 311 app. The platform will include a QR code or hyperlink that take users to an online dashboard where they may learn additional details, update data collection preferences, and share comments and concerns with local officials. We plan to work with smart city technology developers to create a software solution that will, ultimately, enable residents to opt out of data collection. The project will inform novel accountability strategies meant to ensure that wildly disparate smart city technologies—each employed for a distinct purpose—respect residents’ data privacy and avoid discriminatory impacts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.