Cities are filling tech gaps but governance gap sill prevalent: Report

GENEVA: A report titled ‘Governing Smart Cities’ was released by the World Economic Forum on July 13, which seeks to help city leaders identify gaps, protect long-term interests, and keep up with the pace of technology. It tries to provide benchmark for the ethical and responsible use of smart city technologies by looking into the inner workings of 36 pioneer cities. The report established that cities of all sizes, geographies, and levels of development across the world have serious governance gaps, including failure to designate a person accountable for cyber-security or to assess privacy risks when procuring new technology systems. City leaders can close these gaps and protect long-term by acting immediately.

The report follows the call to action from G20 ministers in 2019 that resulted in the formation of G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance to act as a platform to help cities strengthen their knowledge, expertise and governance of smart city technologies. Over 200,000 cities, local governments, leading companies, start-ups, research institutions, and civil society communities are represented by the Alliance and its partners.

According to the report, in spite of an unprecedented increase in global cyber-security attacks, most cities have not yet designated a specific government official as an ensuing accountable person for cyber-security. Even though, majority of cities were found to recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of their citizens, only 17 per cent of the cities surveyed are in the practice of carrying out privacy impact assessments before deploying new technologies.

Jeff Merritt, Head of Internet of Things and Urban Transformation, World Economic Forum, said that the report found cities continuing to invest heavily in new technologies to automate and improve city services and urban life, but are still falling behind when it comes to ensuring effective oversight and governance of these technologies.

The report is based on assessment of 36 pioneer cities spanning over six countries and 22 countries. In a bid to understand and assess the implementation of a set of five essential policies identifies by the G20 Alliance last year, government officials and policy experts were interviewed between January 2021 and March 2021.