It’s time to regulate data collected by smart cities

Mannequins pose with a self-driving car at a vehicle test track in Canada. Mark Blinch/Reuters

The disclosures of personal data gathered by Facebook have focused attention on privacy. But the data control issue goes well beyond privacy and credit card protection; it’s people’s safety as a whole that is at stake when data generated by cars loaded with sensors and connected objects can be accessed by hackers. Based on a U.S. Government Accountability Office report, which points to the fact that many IoT-enabled devices (Internet of Things) fail to anticipate threats, an article in Citylab magazine claims that the time has come to regulate the technological development of smart cities.