SMART CITIES AND DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE: GOVERNING URBAN DATA IN INDIA

INTRODUCTION    

India is gradually viewing smart cities as a permanent answer to the persistent obstacles in the country’s urban landscape, including traffic jams, pollution, underperforming services, and administrative inefficiency. With the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) launched in 2015, new urban governance is being reshaped through the use of data for real-time control and digital public service delivery.

Urban digital infrastructure is increasingly being constructed around the ICCC systems, CCTV surveillance, smart utility meters, smart traffic control, and sensors. Although these technologies promise operational efficiency and adaptability, they fundamentally change relationships between citizens, the state and urban environment. Smart city governance practices are built on the ongoing data harvesting from people, built structures, and their surroundings.

DATA ECOSYSTEMS IN SMART CITIES       

Inter-connected data ecosystems are the basis of smart cities. Data generating IoT devices, such as those used in traffic control, water distribution, electricity supply, waste disposal, and public surveillance continuously create enormous volumes of information. Integrated command and control centers (ICCC) collect, analyze, and visualize data for predictive governance, including the anticipation of traffic jams, the monitoring of crime, the management of emergency resources, and the optimization of resource distribution.

The digital components of urban ecosystems, however, fundamentally differ from traditional urban infrastructure. Unlike traditional urban infrastructure, digital infrastructure components are intangible, changeable, and intimately interwoven with personal data. The construction of urban service systems often inadvertently incorporates information about location, actions, personal characteristics, and real-time movement without adequate governance. The regulation of such data remains inadequate and inconsistent, leading to ambiguity of consent, proportionality, and purpose.

POLICY FRAMEWORK GOVERNING SMART CITY DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE      

The Smart City Mission in India is driven more by policy than by statute. The Smart City Mission Guidelines set out certain goals, but, as far as data governance is concerned, there is very little guidance. Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), which are set up to manage smart city initiatives, are structured like corporations and, as such, have a lot of freedom to, for example, hire private tech companies to undertake data collection, storage, and analysis.

Along with the Smart City Mission, Digital India, the National Urban Digital Mission (NUDM), and India Stack all aim to foster the development of interoperable digital public infrastructure. Although the focus is on efficiency and standardization, people tend to overlook the urban-specific concerns such as over-surveillance, the predominance of the private sector, and the lack of accountability of municipalities.

THE REGULATION OF DATA AND PRIVACY IN SMART CITIES

The enactment of India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP) is the most recent and important development in India’s data protection legislation. Consent-based data processing, purpose limitation, and accountability obligations imposed on data fiduciaries (including data fiduciaries who are part of the state), are the key features of the Act. Smart city SPVs and other municipal bodies, in principle, are covered by the Act.

Yet, the challenges are numerous. To begin with, the Act provides that data fiduciaries’ accountability is not required for state functions, public order or the protection of the state, which could justify large-scale surveillance in cities. Second, the focus of the Act is on the protection of personal data. Consequently, data that is not personal or anaonymized urban data, which is often used for profiling and predictive analytics, remains unregulated. Third, the data protection law does not provide for locale-based regulatory frameworks.

From a public law perspective, the identification of the right to privacy as a fundamental right by the Supreme Court in the case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India establishes a right to retain control over data, and ensure data collection that is proportionate and necessary. This principle, however, is not being applied to urban governance initiatives like CCTV surveillance and the use of facial recognition technology in public spaces.

SMART CITIES, URBAN GOVERNANCE, AND THE INTERNET OF THINGS

The use of the IoT in smart cities functions as technological enabler of smart urban governance, and the governance of  cities through technology raises its own set of concerns. The use of CCTV in combination with facial and license plate recognition technologies, along with predictive policing, is being increasingly justified, in the name of public safety. These systems, while improving the monitoring of movements, also create an environment of mass surveillance that is detrimental to movement and contributes to discriminatory profiling.

In the absence of a specific public surveillance technology law in India, the regulation under the Information Technology Act, 2000, which does not account for surveillance that is biometrically captured in real time, is being used to justify surveillance through executive circulars and tenders at the local government-level, rather than through legislation.

The absence of laws, both within and outside India, that govern the surveillance of public technologies, such as information systems and smart city technologies, contribute to a lack of accountability and transparency within the system. The public is kept in the dark as to what information is collected and stored, for what purposes, and for how long. The absence of laws leads to the normalization of surveillance, where the smart city systems are used to collect and store data.

CONNECTIVITY, DIGITAL DIVIDE, AND URBAN INEQUALITY   

Urban digital infrastructure enables increasing urban smartness. However, the digital infrastructure inequality results in unequal levels of urban smartness and exacerbates urban inequalities. Digital infrastructure is provided as a service, or in many instances, data is collected and monetized through data exploitation, without any service being provided in return. This is particularly the case for informal settlements, the digital poor, involuntary migrants, and economically poor urban populations.

Therefore, in addition to privacy, smart city legislation must address equity, inclusion, and non-discrimination. Smart city governance in the European Union and certain other jurisdictions is more closely aligned to the rights of the people. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes strict rules, including obligations on public authorities, data protection impact assessments, and the principle of data minimization. Some European cities have begun to implement urban data trusts integrated with participatory data governance.

BUILDING A FRAMEWORK USING SMART CITY RIGHTS     

In order for smart cities to remain constitutionally valid and inclusive, multiple reforms need to be put in place. Since urban data governance is still developing in India, municipalities need to offer their citizens ‘urban data’ acting as fiduciary data trustees. Smart cities in India must first focus on data governance, ownership, stewardship, and access rights, especially with respect to urban data.

The use of surveillance technology must be regulated. This requires strict legislation, and the use of these technologies must be measured and controlled. There must also be independent oversight to monitor the use of these technologies. Legislation that governs the use of integrated surveillance must focus on the principles of justification, proportionality, and transparency.

CONCLUSION          

The future of urban governance is smart cities, and the success of these projects should not focus solely on efficiency, and the sophistication of the technology being used. Rapid changes in technology, including advances in data, the IoT, and connectivity, are also resulting in shifts in distribution of power in urban areas. These changes are in addition to the existing legal framework to ensure that urban governance remains accessible and inclusive. Smart cities need to be intelligent and just as digital and seamless as the technologies that are being incorporated.