The smart city establishment has utilized a number of technological and digital applications and for this reason, it is also known as the digital city. The new changes that are introduced in the smart cities, exhibits the different methods by which the implementation of information and communication technologies have been conducted in smart cities. They have evolved diversely into the ecosystems through sensors, robots, software, real-time surveillance, networks and through various different means. But there are many environmental and social factors that have been become a crucial part of the smart city that are creating ethical issues. With the growing and developing technology, the building of smart cities is evolving and reaching a new height with each passing day, with new gadgets, applications being installed in the smart cities to bring convenience in the lives of the people, but the one thing that is paying a huge price is the ethics. In this assignment, a critical analysis is conducted on the ethical and social issues that relate to smart cities, and are emerging due to the technological developments that are being added to the smart cities. The current projects of the smart cities display a high usage of technology that is affecting the ethics and society.
The smart cities are surrounded by technology in three different aspects that are directed, automated and volunteered. The smart cities are directed by technology through the surveillance that is conducted with the help of CCTV, flying drones, satellites, and many different technologies (Bianchini and Avila, 2014). But it is just not the directed technology that is a big part of the smart city. Some of the automated technologies that are widely used in the smart city are digital devices, sensors, transponders, actuators, meters (loT), and many other technologies that are used for interactions and transactions (Clever et al., 2018). Apart from these, there are also some volunteered technologies that the citizen’s use in the smart cities to bring more convenience in their lives that include technological wearable, crowdsourcing, neogeography, and citizen science. These technologies have surrounded the human being living in smart cities and thus a number of ethical and social issues are arising due to their usage so widely. The biggest ethical violation that happens due to the technologies is the invasion in the private life of a person. The 24-hour surveillance has hindered the private and confidential details of a person, even the integrity of the physical person is hindered and also the personal space of the people living in the smart cities (de Waal and Dignum, 2017). All these hindrances are being conducted by the automatic technology that captures the life, activities, personal space, and confidentiality of a person. All these aspects are the ethical issues that require serious attention. From the communication details to the location details and also the transaction details of a person, all can be detected without the knowledge of the person, ending the privacy in a person’s life and giving rise to ethical and social issues. These issues have also given rise to some social issues that are being ignored by the people as issues bigger than that, like the political, economic and personal issues are given more importance than the other ethical and social issues are being ignored completely. The current consequences state that a human being is a handicapped person without technology and the huge dependency with each and every aspect of a human’s life highlight and exhibits the dark side of human life in the future (Eccles, 2015).
The establishment of the smart cities is conducted legally by the consent of the government. The government has the main aim of improving the standard of living in the cities through technology and to promote data driven decision making (Hearsum, 2017). Though, the approach of the government was good they did not examine the situation in totality ignoring the attention to details. The data collection of the various technologies for the development of the smart cities completely ignores the poor communities, generating several social issues. The evaluation of the entire communities ignores the different income groups and their contribution to society and the economy (Kandpal, Kaur and Tyagi, 2017). And thus, due to this the poor communities suffers a lot. This is due to the integrated nature of each technology. For example, the geographical data, the economic performance, and the traffic data, all these systems are integrated for the government use (Mishra, 2013). Now, if the economic performance is increased then the system will automatically give more preference to the people with a high economical background, resulting in the loss to the poor communities. The government has ignored all these inequalities that have affected the balance in the smart cities resulting in ethical and social issues. There are even systems that are built with the help of governments and these systems over analyzed the communities of color, which is a very big ethics violation, but the systems assist the communities on that basis. It is not that the establishment of the smart cities cannot fight these inequalities, but the current governing systems that have been designed were developed on this basis, ignoring some crucial elements that are resulting in the emergence of issues related to small, poor or color communities (Pasquinelli, 2015). The data collected by the various systems can be proactively utilized for addressing the drawbacks that have been part of the community from ages. The smart cities of today require a better understanding of the different principles that have to be incorporated to address these issues which are not just ethical or social issues but they are also violating the laws of the constitution. The issues that are emerging in the personal lives of the people are the violations that are taking place due to the detection of a person’s location, activities, and personal space. The main aim of utilizing these technologies was the security of the people and it is difficult to argue with that, as in the current times every person is unsafe, even in their houses. But, like no one can predict the future in the same way people cannot live in this fear of getting hit by an accident (Sholla, 2018). The surveillance has entered the personal space of the people is a very big ethical issue and the only way to address is, it should not be made mandatory for all the people to follow in a community. People should direct them and should allow this invasion only if they want. In the smart cities, there are communities that have made it compulsory to have a continuous surveillance on them, stating it is important for the safety. No place is safe and thus it is better that the use of technology should be conducted only to a certain extent. No one knows that when a natural disaster can attack their life, which cannot be controlled beforehand, thus in the same way, having a secured environment is good, but there are some uncertainties that a person will never be prepared to deal with them (Wang and Heffernan, 2009).
For understanding the issues that relate to the smart cities, it is important to utilize some of the very famous ethics stories. The first ethical theory that has been in practice since ages is the Utilitarianism theory (Wang, Fang and Gao, 2017). To sum up, this theory in a single statement, then it states that “the greatest good for the greatest number”. The main approach of this theory is that decisions will be formulated on the basis of the reactions of the actions, and due to this reason this theory is also known as the theory of consequentialism. The people living in smart cities can utilize this theory for avoiding any confrontation and attaining consensus. The utilitarianism theory may initially be helpful for the governments in understanding the duties that they possess towards the public and their ethics and social needs, this theory will not provide with a strong framework that should be utilized for a better decision making that will help in controlling the issues associated with the ethics and the society (Wang, Fang and Gao, 2018). Thus under such circumstances, another theory should be utilized for understanding the smart cities in a much broader view. The next theory that can be utilized is the deontological theory of ethics and this approach is the best one to understand the ethics violations in smart cities. According to this theory, human beings must be treated with respect and dignity as they are the key rights. Now, the establishments of the smart cities have invaded the lives of the people and making it compulsory in their personal space has affected their dignity and has disrespected them. A person living in a smart city technically does not possess a personal life due to the various invasions that technology has entered in different areas of a person’s life (Willems, 2017). Also, according to the theory of deontological, it is the duty of a person to treat all the people equally. But the systems that are integrated and are used in the smart cities do not follow this ethical theory by discriminating between communities in context to their income, age, and color, thus the violation conducted by the smart city’s system has not been created according to the theories of ethics that are crucial for every person and also for the society (Lee, Phaal and Lee, 2013). For understanding the ethical and social issues in smart cities, the theory of virtue ethics, can also be used. Particularly this theory has gained a lot of prominence in public relations in recent years, so this theory will help in better understanding of the ethics and social issues. This theory has the main focus on the decision making and has been inspired by the Aristotle (Lubis, Yani Nasution and Safii, 2018). This theory highlights that the governments who are responsible for the development of cities into smart cities have the power which should be used appropriately in formulating decisions. These decisions should be made on the basis that what is good for a person. Now, inequality and invasion in the public space can never be good for a person, thus it is important to understand that the government has to build up policies that address the emerging ethical and social issues in the smart cities due to the high usage of the technology. The following ethical matrix table will highlight the issues in the smart cities.
|
Ethics |
Insight |
Scope |
|
Privacy |
The smart cities are responsible for the invasion of a person’s bodily privacy, identity privacy, and territorial privacy. |
The only scope that can be seen in this issue is that the invasion should be conducted with the consent of the person and should be made mandatory. Also, the biggest thing is the approval of the person to invade his privacy by any means (Paroutis, Bennett and Heracleous, 2014). |
|
Inequality |
The smart cities’ system that is integrated has created inequalities that are related to income size, community size, and the community color. This is a violation of the major ethical and social rights and is also violating the constitutional rights of a person. |
The systems that are integrated are developed that have ignored many crucial details which are important to take into consideration for an individual and the society. So, there is an urgent change which is needed in the system governed by the government as due to this regularly the people belonging to the poor communities or to lower income groups have been suffering a lot. |
Conclusion
Technology is the backbone of smart cities. Each and every aspect of a person’s life living in a smart city is governed by the technology. Thus, it is important to understand that though bringing a convenience in a person’s life and having high standards of security for personal safety are the necessities of the current generation. But there is an ethical and social responsibility that each individual, group, and the government has towards each other. Thus, it should be taken into consideration that the violation that is happening to the ethics of a person and the social issues all should be taken into consideration while incorporating a technology in the daily lifestyle. And the different measures finalized should be taken if the individual provides its consent and keeping in mind the rights of the society.
References
Bianchini, D. and Avila, I. (2014). Smart Cities and Their Smart Decisions: Ethical Considerations. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 33(1), pp.34-40.
Clever, S., Crago, T., Polka, A., Al-Jaroodi, J. and Mohamed, N. (2018). Ethical Analyses of Smart City Applications. Urban Science, 2(4), p.96.
De Waal, M. and Dignum, M. (2017). The citizen in the smart city. How the smart city could transform citizenship. It – Information Technology, 59(6), pp.65-115.
Eccles, A. (2015). Telecare technologies and isolation: some ethical issues. Smart Homecare Technology and TeleHealth, 1(1), p.81.
Hearsum, S. (2017). Humble leadership: hippy fantasy or 21st century necessity? Strategic HR Review, 16(1), pp.39-41.
Kandpal, V., Kaur, H. and Tyagi, V. (2017). Smart City Projects in India: Issues and Challenges. SSRN Electronic Journal, 2(1), pp.60-99.
Lee, J., Phaal, R. and Lee, S. (2013). An integrated service-device-technology roadmap for smart city development. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 80(2), pp.286-306.
Lubis, I., Yani Nasution, A. and Safii, M. (2018). Analysis Criteria and Indicator Estimation Smart City in South Tangerang City, Banten Province (An Analysis through Smart Economy). KnE Social Sciences, 3(10), p.565.
Mishra, M. (2013). Role of Technology in Smart Governance: ‘Smart City, Safe City’. SSRN Electronic Journal, 1(1), pp.5-19.
Paroutis, S., Bennett, M. and Heracleous, L. (2014). A strategic view on smart city technology: The case of IBM Smarter Cities during a recession. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 89(2), pp.262-272.
Pasquinelli, C. (2015). City Branding and Local SMEs: A Smart Specialisation Perspective. Symphonya. Emerging Issues in Management, 1(1), pp.30-60.
Sholla, S. (2018). Docile Smart City Architecture: Moving Toward an Ethical Smart City. International Journal of Computing and Digital Systemss, 7(3), pp.167-174.
Wang, S. and Heffernan, N. (2009). Ethical issues in Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Perceptions of teachers and learners. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(5), pp.796-813.
Wang, Y., Fang, K. and Gao, Y. (2017). The Development Status and Focus Issues of Smart City. DEStech Transactions on Computer Science and Engineering, 1(1), pp.20-40.
Wamg, Y., Fang, K. and Gao, Y. (2018). The Development Status and Focus Issues of Smart City. DEStech Transactions on Computer Science and Engineering, 1(1), pp.45-90.
Willems, J. (2017). Do Privacy Issues Matter in Citizen Participation? An Experiment in the Context of Smart City Apps. SSRN Electronic Journal, 1(1), pp.26-76.
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