Smart cities need smart laws, says Malcolm Dowden
- Law and regulation, typically, lag some decades behind technological development.
- A key challenge for regulators is how best to accommodate “machine to machine” communication and the “internet of things”.
- The role of law and regulation in protecting privacy may also require a fundamental rethink.
What makes a “smart city” smart? Increasingly, the answer lies in the deployment of connected devices and the “internet of things” (IoT). From traffic and transport to energy management systems, key functions are being equipped to provide real-time and actionable data to inform the operation of city-wide systems and services. Machine to machine (M2M) communication drawing data from sensors embedded into objects, vehicles, street furniture and infrastructure vastly increases the potential for gathering and using data about everything from traffic jams to pedestrian flows, energy demand and supply, outages and maintenance needs in utility services. These developments reflect similar trends in extractive industries, manufacturing and logistics which are rapidly adding up to the “fourth industrial revolution”.
Smart city and “industrial internet” developments jostle with domestic and consumer-facing innovations
