How Streetlight Cameras And Wi-Fi In Public Places Affect Citizen Behavior And Digital Identity Management

The Impact of Streetlight Cameras in Public Places on Citizen Behavior

The installation of cameras in streetlights or public places helps the people of a particular community largely. It also helps the government in various ways (Kim, 2014). The initiation taken by Australian State Government to install cameras in streetlights would affect various categories of people. These categories are as follows

• Rash drivers: citizens with casual attitude break signals very often (Zanella, Bui & Castellani, 2014). This can be avoided with the help of cameras in streetlights and other places.
• Criminals: criminals would be caught easily with the help of cameras. This as a result would decrease the rate of crime taking place in public places.
• Countrymen who litter in public places: this would affect the countrymen who litter in public places instead of using the dustbin.
• Workers: workers would not have to roam around looking for garbage. They can just have an eye on the footages received from cameras (Zanella, Bui & Castellani, 2014). This would help them to take instant action on this and clean the places as soon as possible.
• Traffic police: the installation of camera would help the traffic police to maintain discipline in public places (Zanella, Bui & Castellani, 2014). It would also help the traffic police to prevent any nuisance occurring on the road.

Due to this approach, the citizens are expected to be more disciplined in public places (Amrutur, Rajaraman & Acharya, 2017). The changes expected in the citizens are as follows

• The citizens would follow traffic rules because if they violate the rules they would be caught easily in the cameras.
• The rate of criminals who take advantage of congestion occurred in public places is expected to reduce.
• People would use the dustbins for dumping the garbage instead of dumping them on the road.
• The workers recruited by government for cleaning or some other purposes can also be monitored.

The installation of cameras in public places would affect the behavior of citizens. This change would help the government to maintain discipline at these places. Some ways in which the behavior of citizens would change are as follows

• Decrease in the rate of crimes: people who commit crimes on congested areas like road crossings can be tracked very easily with the help of camera footages. This would create a fear in them and prevent them from committing these crimes (Joh, 2018). Even if a crime takes place, the investigation would not be time consuming, as the appearance of the criminal will be received from the footages. The revealing of criminal’s appearance makes the work of cops a lot easier.
• Discipline:  the fear of being monitored would make people behave more decently in public places. Very often, it is seen that people break traffic rules and cross roads or drive rashly which could be a cause of accident (Jin, Hannon & Cortes, 2016). This can be prevented. People would not break traffic rules and drive in a decent manner.
• Avoiding accidents: this is one of the most important change that is expected in the citizens. This would help the citizens as well as the government. It is very common among people, in case a road accident occurs and the victim is severely injured. Criminal runs away instead of helping the victim. Moreover the people around also prefer staying away from it. The installation of camera in streetlights would reduce the amount of accidents as well as help the cops to identify the guilty one (Ballas, Marsden & Zhang, 2018). This would also help to provide medical treatment to the victim as soon as possible. In case of some serious accidents, it might save the life of victim.
• Clean city: the installation of cameras in streetlights and other public places would help the city to stay clean. It would take place in two ways. Firstly, the citizens would not dump garbage on roads and use dustbins only (Joh, 2018). Secondly in case some garbage s dumped on road fast action can be taken to remove it. The team that is responsible for cleanliness of the city can be informed and they may send labors in order to clean it.

The installation of Wi-Fi for the smart city plan would affect various categories of people. These categories are as follows.

• Financially week people: the installation of Wi-Fi for smart city plan would help the people who are financially week and cannot afford a broadband connection (Amano, Kajita & Yamaguchi, 2017). This would help them to gain knowledge from net, which is not available in books.
• Disabled people: disabled people who cannot attend schools or colleges due to their physical or mental disability can take the help of net and peruse their studies as well as carrier (Amano, Kajita & Yamaguchi, 2017). This Wi-Fi installation would help largely the people who fall under the category of disabled.
• Children: Wi-Fi would give free access to internet to the citizens. This would help the children in many ways. Nowadays parents do not have the time to look after their children for studies. Children have to take tuitions in order to understand their academic subjects (Amano, Kajita & Yamaguchi, 2017). The access to net would help them to study at their home without the help any tuition. Internet would give access to YouTube and many more sites that can help the children with their studies.
• Online business: people who run online business would be affected largely with the installation of Wi-Fi.
• Socially active people: people who like to live a social life would be affected by the installation of Wi-Fi. There are people who run their own business online or earn by blogging (Amano, Kajita & Yamaguchi, 2017). Wi-Fi would help them largely.

Advancement in technology has seen many changes in human behavior. The introduction of Public Wi-Fi would also result in behavioral changes in people. Usually the internet connection costs a particular amount of money. The introduction of Wi-Fi network would give people free access to inter which would be an attraction to people. Many people cannot afford the access of internet by their own (Angelidou, 2014). The free Wi-Fi would help people in getting free access to internet this would change the behavior of the people largely. The free internet connectivity would help people to stay socially active and know people from worldwide. People would shop clothes, groceries and other household items online. They would not visit offline shops or stores. People will be virtually connected to other people online through social activities (Angelidou, 2014). People would start using net banking and they would not need to visit bank for depositing or withdrawing money or any other purpose. People who are shy and find it difficult to communicate with people would feel comfortable in communicating through online activities. The behavioral changes among people might have a negative impact in their lives. The sudden access of internet makes people unorganized (Angelidou, 2014). Sometimes youngsters who get involved in social life too much that it affects them emotionally and mentally. People who are not habituated in having unlimited access to internet, get involved into too much. This makes them avoid household or professional activities. Sometimes continuous use of internet might lead to insomnia. Insomnia would affect lives of people negatively (Mehmood, Ahmad & Yaqoob, 2017). Children who get access of internet at a very young age face problems in development. Getting used to social platform at a young age creates a negative impact on their mental health. It derails the functioning of brain as well as cell growth. Young men who are too much active on social media or have continuous access of internet decreases their sperm count. This affects their lives largely.

• Exploring: the free public Wi-Fi would help the citizens to find out ways to their destination. They would not get lost because they can track their movement with the help of Google Maps (Kontokosta & Johnson, 2017). This will help them to know the exact distance they need to cover in order to reach their destination.
• Free knowledge: traditionally people had limited sources to gain knowledge. Now they have a source, which is the combination of all the other sources for gaining knowledge (Kontokosta & Johnson, 2017). Internet gives people the freedom of knowledge gain with the help of various ways such as newspaper, online sites and many more. People do not need to waste time and read newspapers. There are various sites where they can read newspapers as well as watch news channels.
• Engagement in social activities: free access to internet allows people to stay socially active. This helps people to stay connected with their loved ones in no time and irrespective of their geographical distance. Increasing social activity would detach people from the real world (Musa, 2018). People of young generation that is new to social media sites and digital platform tend to stay busy in online activities. They tend to chat or post or surf YouTube even when they are doing their respective works or walking on road. This may increase the chances of accidents.
• Digital transactions: the free access to internet makes banking a lot easier. Elderly people who need to visit banks for various transactions would be benefitted with the net banking (Musa, 2018). They do not have to stand in queues for paying electricity or phone bills.
• Entertainment: the unlimited access to internet is very helpful for people who cannot stay in touch with the outside world such as people with some disability or people who are suffering from some illness (Musa, 2018). They can download movies or motivational videos from the internet.
• Good working experience: people who work as freelancers need to have an active internet connection in their house. The free internet would give them the freedom of geographical place for working. They can enjoy the advantage of working from anywhere they want.

The Effect of Public Wi-Fi on Citizen Behavior

d.  As discussed above people are very much attracted towards free internet access. Nowadays mobile phones have a specification, which allows the phone to get connected to Wi-Fi whenever it gets a source (Mone, 2015). As public Wi-Fi would have no security key, mobile phones would automatically get connected to it. This might lead to some mishaps occurred to us such as theft of personal information and many more. In order to keep the personal data safe, few steps should be kept in mind. These steps are as follows

• Before connecting to the public Wi-Fi, file sharing should be closed. This should be done because someone else in the same network can view them.
• A two-factor authentication step should be applied to the electronic devices. This adds up another layer of security in the device of the user (Mone, 2015). Multiple layers for authentication on bank accounts, social networking and email can also be added for preventing cyber criminals from stealing data.
• Usage of VPN can also help the users. The use of Virtual Private Network to keep personal data safe while using public network is very common. Before connecting to the public network, the user has to login to the VPN.
• Before connecting to a network, the user to ensure that the network is encrypted. This can be done by checking the URL of the website (Mone, 2015). The URLs that begin with HTTP are not encrypted and the URLs that start with HTTPS are safe.

3. Yes, I think the use of Digital Identity would help me keep my data secured when my phone or other devices are connected to public Wi-Fi. A digital identity refers to an online identity that has been adopted by the user (Feher, 2016). An organization, an individual or a device can adopt this sort of identity. The online identity is usually adopted with help of material shared like photos. This material is kept open for interpretation. The creation of a digital identity would help me in many ways. Having a digital identity would not disclose the actual identity of the users to the hackers or cybercriminals who hack the website or network for extracting information from the user (Feher, 2016). If the user is not disclosed the hacker would not know if the person from whom they are stealing information is the correct person whose information they want to steal. One of the most important advantage of digital identity is that the information provided in the sites would not be legitimate. Suppose there are various sites that require the user’s information before letting them to log in to their site (Mellmer, Young & Perkins, 2014). They require information such as picture, address, password, birthday and many more. We provide this information without even realizing that they may be stolen. If we use digital identity and the identity is stolen, it would not affect us in any way. Our personal information would not be stolen by any means. The digital identity is actually a made up identity which is created with the help of various sources. Digital identity can secure personal data because it increases the volume of transactions (Nocera, 2017). It is useful for maintaining privacy in the shopping sites that are very often used by users for various purposes. Digital identity helps in assuring that the legitimate user performs the transaction. This makes the process much more organized and prevents the hackers who take the advantage of public networks and perform fake transactions. Digital identity applies very tough regulatory standards in order to protect data (Beck, 2015). This standard ensures that the data is secure with the help of proper measures of security.

The Potential Negative Effects of Unlimited Access to the Internet on People’s Lives

The use of digital identity is undoubtedly good for securing data but in some cases, it may fail to provide security to our data. As mentioned above various sites ask for information from the user in order to save them to their site (Linn, Boyle & McVey, 2017). This is done so that next time the user visits that particular site, he would not need to provide the same information repeatedly. The information provided can be stolen by the hackers and used for ill purposes. The information provided by the user completely depends upon him. If the user shares personal information on online sites like atm card number or pin number, there are high chances that it might be stolen. Creation of strong password should be followed for every site that includes financial transactions (Grassi, Garcia & Fenton, 2017). People do not usually follow this very often. The two-step verification is very important for every user. Digital identity cannot provide better security than the two-step verification.

4. Just creating a digital identity is not enough to secure data; it has to be maintained as well (Simmonds, 2015). Some important steps that should be taken in order to ensure that the digital identity secures our data are as follows.

• Review the privacy setting quite often: it is not very often that we check our privacy settings on phone or other devices. Sometimes we download an application and it requires permission to run on our phone (Grassi, Garcia & Fenton, 2017). We provide the permission to the application without actually noticing the permission asked by the apps is actually needed by it. We should check the privacy settings and ensure that the permissions allowed to an app are the ones that it needs to run. If not so it should not be permitted or the application might be deleted because it may prove to be harmful for us.
• Good password: all the accounts created by a user should have unique and strong passwords. It might be difficult to remember all the passwords, so they may be noted down in a safe place, which is accessible by the user only (Loeb & McCabe, 2016). If a user has same password in all the accounts and his phone is connected to the public Wi-Fi, it would be easier for the hackers or cyber criminals to access the accounts of the user. People should not set passwords such as their name, birthday, memorable day or something that can be easily predictable. Predictable passwords are easy to crack. This might result in stealing information from the user and using it for ill purpose.
• Information in device: usually people like to keep information such as emails, pictures and documents handy. They save all the data in the devices from where it is accessed easily, especially phone (Wise & O’Byrne, 2015). Saving too much data on phone would give the hackers enough information regarding the user so that they can cause serious damage to the user. So this should be avoided especially when the phone gets connected to public Wi-Fi most of the time.
• Anti-virus apps: the phone is like a computer or tablet that contains a lot of data. This means in order to keep the data safe, antivirus applications should be installed in the phone in order to save the data from viruses that can attack our device when it is connected to the public Wi-Fi (Laurent & Bouzefrane, 2015). A phone contains a wealth of data that needs to be protected using necessary means. Antivirus apps are one of them. These applications should be updated whenever needed.
• Log out the accounts: it is very easy for people to access their social networking site or shopping site and many other sites if they stay logged in, in those sites. It consumes lesser amount of time and gives us updates on anything we want, including the balance in our bank accounts. This leads to a serious threat to us. In case the phone drops in a public place and its gets accessed by some random person, he might misuse the logged in sites or accounts (Adelman & Chadwick, 2014). When the phone is connected to a public Wi-Fi there are chances that the logged in networks might get accesses by someone who is in the network. The site might be used for some illegal purposes.

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