Smart cities could transform urban living for the better. However, in order to mitigate the risks of cyber threats that can be exacerbated by inadequately secured and mobile edge computing (MEC) technologies, government officials should be aware of smart cities security concerns associated with their supporting infrastructure.

September 24, 2021 • Verizon

What is a smart city?

A smart city is an urban area that uses technologies and networking to help improve local services and infrastructure management. For example, a smart city can harness the power of the Internet of Things (IoT), MEC and faster networking, such as 4G LTE and 5G, to reduce operational costs and provide better, faster services and information-sharing.

Typically, a smart city collects data using a web of IoT-connected sensors to gather insights about how residents use the environment and access services. This data helps inform decision-makers so resources can be more appropriately allocated.

As urbanization accelerates, smart cities will likely take on even more relevance. In fact, according to a report by Technavio, the market for smart cities is predicted to grow by about $2.1 trillion by 2024—and with it, smart cities’ security concerns.

Read more at https://www.govtech.com/sponsored/smart-cities-security-concerns-and-safety-issues-5g-mec-and-security-risks

The post Smart Cities Security Concerns and Safety Issues: 5G, MEC and Security Risks appeared first on EMFSA.

By Ray Le Maistre, Aug 6, 2021

• Network operators will need to densify their 5G networks
• ‘Street furniture’ such as light poles will play a key role
• Early examples are already operational
• Regulators, cities and vendors are working to make deployments possible

As mobile operators densify their radio access networks to put 5G’s capabilities to their full use, ‘street furniture’ – in particular street lighting infrastructure – is set to play an increasingly important role in enabling that, as well as providing lots of other smart city/IoT capabilities. 

Using street lights as a way to deploy wireless access infrastructure is not new, but it’s also not that widespread, and is only just starting to play a role in 5G expansion plans. As it happens, this development comes at a time when cities are increasingly deploying more efficient LED lighting infrastructure that is well suited to housing smart city-enabling technology, including small cells and Wi-Fi access points. 

Read more at https://www.telecomtv.com/content/5g/shedding-light-on-5g-street-furniture-42145/

The post Shedding light on 5G street furniture appeared first on EMFSA.

By Heidi Swart • 6 April 2021

Heidi Swart is a journalist who reports on surveillance and data privacy. This story was commissioned by the Media Policy and Democracy Project, an initiative of the University of Johannesburg’s Department of Journalism, Film and TV and Unisa’s Department of Communication Science. 

It’s the beginning: 5G will bring radical changes in how we live, with far-reaching implications for privacy and surveillance. Although the tech is new, decades-old legislation* already paves the way for South African authorities to access citizens’ information through their personal smart devices.

Imagine a world where police no longer needed human witnesses. One where they could determine that, while inside your home, you walked exactly 453m between 9.18am and 10.05am? Or perhaps they could prove that you’re lying, since they have medical records reflecting your cardiac rhythms during a specific timeframe? These are actual cases where police in the US traced minute details of people’s lives through their smart devices. In the former, a woman’s Fitbit proved her husband lied about her movements on the morning of her murder. In the latter, a man’s pacemaker gave him away in an arson investigation. 

This is what evidence will increasingly look like as we move towards the world of 5G, where smart homes and cities become the norm. While 2G and 3G are still the most widely available networks in South Africa, cities are already changing. Since 2019, Rain, Vodacom and MTN have all launched 5G networks.

To see the drastic impact of 5G on government surveillance, it helps to take a step back.

Read the report at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-06-5g-opens-the-gates-for-surveillance-on-steroids/

The post SPECIAL REPORT: 5G opens the gates for surveillance on steroids appeared first on EMFSA.

By John Lorinc Atkinson Fellow Wed., Jan. 13, 2021

A languishing brownfield site. A developer’s visions of castles in the sky. Corporate partnerships to build cutting-edge smart city infrastructure. And the promise of luring tech giants prepared to invest billions.

The hype could have easily described Sidewalk Labs’ now aborted Toronto venture, but this story actually played out near Boston, on a decommissioned airbase in Weymouth, about half an hour southwest of a city known for its Ivy League colleges and the booming tech industry spawned by MIT.

When LStar, a North Carolina developer, began building Union Point in the mid-2010s on that base, it looked a lot like many generic master-planned edge city projects. But a partnership LStar established with General Electric in 2017 promised much more: not just a fully wired community, but intelligent lighting (LED street lamps that can be remotely monitored), autonomous vehicles, green energy “micro-grids” and streets equipped with sensors that would gauge traffic, locate parking spots and even alert police if gunshots were detected.

As the New York Times noted: “General Electric will use Union Point as a laboratory for testing new products and as a showroom for working systems.” It could have been describing Sidewalk.

LStar and Weymouth officials were so bullish they believed Union Point was a shoo-in to be chosen as Amazon’s second headquarters, a strange urban beauty contest that drew bids from cities across North America, including Toronto. As Kyle Corkum, LStar’s managing partner, told the Boston Business Journal, “I feel sorry for the rest of the competition in the United States, because, honest to God, I have a hard time imagining another site that can score the way we’re going to score.”

Amazon, of course, ended up choosing New York (which promptly changed its mind), and the rest of LStar’s Union Point vision soon collapsed in a cloud of recriminations, lawsuits and complaints from residents who couldn’t even buy a cup of coffee in their cutting edge techno-burb. “The Smart City That Wasn’t” is the cutting verdict handed down by the Journal of American Institute of Architects.

In a bid to contain the damage, Weymouth authorities took desperate measures to push out LStar, even blocking sewer hookups. In January of this year, Toronto developer Brookfield was chosen to take over the languishing project and develop it in a more conventional way.

A McGill University study published in 2019 in the journal Cities concluded, “Union Point represents an example of how smart city rhetoric seduced local officials who were dazzled by the possibility of having an instantly lucrative, tech-focused ‘smart’ city.” What they missed, the authors noted, was the fact that so many of these smart city megaprojects had turned into expensive disappointments.

Read more at https://www.thestar.com/news/atkinsonseries/2021/01/13/smart-city-megaprojects-get-a-lot-of-hype-so-why-do-so-many-turn-out-to-be-expensive-disappointments.html

The post Smart City megaprojects get a lot of hype. So why do so many turn out to be expensive disappointments? appeared first on EMFSA.

By Kate Kaye

Published

 Jan. 11, 2021

When does a smart city become an overly-surveilled city?

In this first episode of City Surveillance Watch,a limited podcast series from Smart Cities Dive, reporter Kate Kaye explores the inherent dichotomy of data-hungry technologies that, while promising to make cities safer and more efficient, can also be considered forms of surveillance tech.

Today, as decision makers evaluate use of technologies such as license plate readers, public safety cameras, smart sensors, and pandemic tech like body temperature scanners, they must balance the potential benefits of seemingly benign systems with very real risks and costs.

In this in-depth episode, listeners will hear from tech providers, city staff and law enforcement representatives, policy makers, civil liberties advocates and activists about how cities are thinking about these technologies. They’ll consider risks and unintended consequences of data-centric tech, and probe the gray areas that lie between a so-called smart city and one that’s overly-surveilled.

Listen and read along below, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/city-surveillance-watch-balancing-act-podcast/592767/

The post City Surveillance Watch: Balancing Act appeared first on EMFSA.

Available online at www.sacities.net

The post SMART CITIES PAPER SERIES: Smart Governance in South African Cities appeared first on EMFSA.

22.09.2020

The “European Science Open Forum (ESOF)”, one of the largest European conferences on science and politics, took place in Trieste/Italy in early September. The DHBW Stuttgart was represented with an online panel discussion on the topic of “Smart EcoDigital Cities and Regions – Challenges and solutions for a sustainable future”.

The discussion focused on current and future challenges that European cities and regions face due to the antagonisms of their ecological, economic and social responsibility. Dr. Judith Rommel from the DHBW Stuttgart, who chaired the online session in Trieste, explains: “Our aim was to promote transnational and interdisciplinary exchange between scientists, companies, cities and regional economic development agencies. Especially, those players who are important for sustainable innovations in societies were represented”.

The discussion therefore sought approaches to solutions that would enable both the health protection of the population and the introduction of new technologies. Different approaches from individual European states were presented.

Caroline Küpfer (City of Herrenberg, Germany) provided examples of how a city can implement climate protection with smart technologies: Based on IoT, a parking guidance system is used to help reduce traffic and sensors are used for automatic irrigation of plants in the city. Cancer researcher Prof. Wilhelm Mosgöller (Medical University of Vienna) was enthusiastic about the exemplary way in which Herrenberg deals with the risks posed by radio technologies, where in some municipal facilities WLAN can be switched off and switched on when needed. He is convinced that “people in Smart Cities and through 5G will be exposed to much stronger electromagnetic fields. The effects of these fields on human health are not really understood”.

The session was also attended by representatives of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Serbia, the Stuttgart Media University and the regional economic development agency of Gorenjska in Slovenia. From the point of view of the panellists, proactive research on the health effects of wireless technology, the planning of recreation zones without radio/ wireless technologies in cities and, above all, the development of innovations together with all citizens are important for the future.

Source: https://www.dhbw-stuttgart.de/artikel/esof-online-session-zur-zukunftsentwicklung-europaeischer-staedte/

The post ESOF online session on the future development of European cities appeared first on EMFSA.

JAMES BARTON 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

Three major Israeli operators have launched commercial 5G services after being issued licences by the country’s government.

Israel’s Ministry of Communications (MoC) has awarded the concessions following last month’s auction of 5G-capable spectrum frequencies, in which HOT Mobile and Partner Communications joined forces to acquire a licence, with Pelephone the third winner.

Bezeq, the parent firm of Pelephone, issued a statement confirming that it had been notified of the update to its general licence, with Communications Minster Yoaz Handel signing off on the operator’s new spectrum allocation.

Read more at: https://www.developingtelecoms.com/telecom-business/operator-news/10059-israeli-operators-launch-commercial-5g.html

The post Israeli operators launch commercial 5G appeared first on EMFSA.

Far from absurd conspiracy theories about spreading coronavirus, Jo Baker argues that the rapid and seemingly unstoppable spread of 5G is happening without consultation or due consideration of the economic, environmental and climatic impact of such technologies.

5G infrastructure is currently being rolled out in many of our towns and cities. In Bristol, where I live, there has been a spate of planning applications from telecom companies for 20-metre-high monopoles in just a few weeks. A local campaign has resulted in hundreds of objections and Bristol City Council has so far refused sixteen applications on grounds of unsuitable siting and dominant appearance. There is a sense that something is being imposed from above without consultation or consent.

Bristol is well-known for its status as a ‘green’ and ‘smart’ city. It was the European Green Capital in 2015; in 2017 it overtook London as the leading smart city in the Huawei Smart City index; and it was one of the 100 Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Cities. Bristol was the first city in the UK to declare a climate emergency, followed, earlier this year, by an ecological emergency. And herein lies the conundrum. Can a city be both green and smart? Will wireless technology deliver a green transition or will it push us further towards ecological disaster?

Read more at: https://rethinkingsecurity.org.uk/2020/09/11/5g-and-green-transition/

The post 5G and the Myth of a Green Transition appeared first on EMFSA.

By Chris Teale

Published Aug. 5, 2020

Amid swirling controversies surrounding San Diego’s Smart Streetlights program, including its use to surveil protestors marching against systemic racism, new laws being debated in the city would more strictly govern the use of surveillance technology.

One ordinance sponsored by City Councilmember Monica Montgomery would set policies governing the current and future use of surveillance technology and set parameters for how it can be used. It also creates requirements on oversight, auditing and reporting. Another would establish a nine-member Privacy Advisory Commission (PAC), which would create a use policy for the San Diego City Council to consider and adopt, and would also need to be informed whenever the city is about to partner on a new type of surveillance technology.

The legislation comes as many cities face a reckoning over policing methods, funding and the culture of surveillance, with calls to “defund the police” upending some cities’ budgeting processes. While some police departments have worked to try and assuage residents’ fears about the use of technology in law enforcement, it has prompted legislative action in cities including New York, where the city council voted in June to force the New York Police Department (NYPD) to be more transparent about the tech it is using.

Read more at: https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/smart-streetlights-san-diego-surveillance/582888/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%20Weekly%20Roundup:%20Smart%20Cities%20Dive:%20Daily%20Dive%2008-08-2020&utm_term=Smart%20Cities%20Dive%20Weekender

The post Smart streetlight controversy in San Diego prompts surveillance revamp appeared first on EMFSA.