Waterfront Toronto recently agreed to evaluate the smart city proposal for Toronto’s Quayside neighbourhood submitted by Google affiliate, Sidewalk Labs.
Waterfront Toronto is the tripartite government agency overseeing the development. If you’re interested in an update on Sidewalk Labs, you can find one here.
As Toronto navigates a potential partnership with Sidewalk Labs, the process feels like it’s playing out backwards. Waterfront Toronto has assured us that they are in control but they, and the public, don’t seem to be a significant part of the design process.
Sidewalk Labs is framing a conversation about technology and data collection in Toronto that should be led by Waterfront Toronto after digital governance policies have been developed through meaningful public consultation.
To their credit, Waterfront Toronto and the City of Toronto are both beginning year long processes to consult the public and develop digital governance guidelines. These guidelines will address how public entities will manage technologies. Notably, they will not explore what technologies people actually want in the first place.
Digital governance guidelines didn’t define the terms of reference for the Sidewalk Labs proposal, they won’t inform the criteria used by Waterfront Toronto to evaluate the proposal, and they won’t frame the “Innovation Agreement” between Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto that addresses privacy and data governance. Instead of being the blueprint for our smart city, these guidelines will end up managing what gets implemented.
Waterfront Toronto will make its final decision on the Sidewalk Labs proposal in March 2020, less than half way through a yearlong process to consult Torontonians and develop their digital governance guidelines. Starting in 2020, the City of Toronto will also begin public consultations to develop similar guidelines.
I’m not against Sidewalk Labs developing Quayside, I see huge upside in smart city technology. And Sidewalk Labs brings a unique ability to develop and implement data driven solutions to difficult urban problems. But I also think that our government institutions have been far too reactive when it comes to designing our smart city.
A small example of this came up last Friday. Sidewalk Labs has said they have no intention to monitor energy use on individual devices inside people’s homes. Yet their most recent submission included a proposal for “end-use monitoring” of electricity consumption at the level of individual units.
When this was pointed out, Sidewalk Labs gave conflicting explanations and changed the report. They also suggested that the privacy concerns were misplaced because Sidewalk Labs never intended to change their position on monitoring energy use.
I can accept this as an honest mistake but it shows how ambiguous language can leave room for multiple interpretations with big implications. If a frank and public conversation had already taken place about what technologies we want and their trade offs, clear expectations could’ve been provided to Sidewalk Labs and the mistake avoided.
Now zoom out. Sidewalk Labs shouldn’t be guessing what we want and we shouldn’t need to decipher the intentions of Sidewalk Labs. The terms of reference for the Quayside proposal should be defined by digital governance policies shaped by those who will be impacted most.
Waterfront Toronto and the public should be integral to design of Quayside. This needs to go beyond reigning in overreaching proposals and curating consultation. Otherwise, we risk building something that reflects the economic logic of a corporation instead of the interests of the people it is intended to benefit.
The impact of Sidewalk Labs will reach far beyond Toronto. For many other cities, this 12 acre development in Quayside will set a precedent, establishing smart city norms and shaping partnerships between cities and tech companies around the world.