Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of stated interests or principles that, in certain areas of application, may be deemed
worth of protection and, if conflicting with those underlying the data protection legal
regime, suggest to provide for differentiated legal treatments, i.e. special provisions.
This latter phenomenon is observable for smart cities because of the potential
for data protection to put at risk the objectives of smart cities, and because of the
importance of the objectives of smart cities (such as the objectives of reduction of
pollution, efficient health care services, efficient consumption of energy, reduction
of traffic congestion etc.) which make them appear in principle worth of protection.
Because of their nature as objectives of a ''general'' or ''public'' interest, the smart
cities objectives appear therefore to deserve a special consideration by legislators.
In smart cities, in other words, data and personal data are processed not only or not
exclusively to the advantage of companies (i.e. to pursue a private interest) but
also for the achievement of the above mentioned objectives of a general or public
interest. This makes the data processing in smart cities peculiar and worth of
special consideration.
For the same reason, to apply to smart cities all of the existing law provisions
whereby the data processors (i.e. those subjects that process third party personal
data) are seen as subjects exclusively pursuing interests of a private nature
(business interests) without a direct impact on the achievement of objectives of a
general interest, seems not necessarily, or not entirely, appropriate.
It appears therefore that legislators have some work to do in this direction, and
that special legal provisions need to be enacted to achieve satisfactory compro-
mises between the conflicting interests involved by smart cities, i.e. the individual
interests of the data subjects (traditionally protected to the maximum extent by
data protection legislation), on one side, and the public or general interests
envisaged by smart cities' programs, on the other side.
Another interesting issue to discuss is the rationale for advocating data pro-
tection and data security in connection with smart cities.
While it is certainly true that inviolable personal rights shall form the theo-
retical basis for such protection (and also a firm one), some ''commercial'' or
practical reasons can also be identified for advocating a certain degree of data
protection and data security in connection with smart cities. This second type of
reasons revolves around the appeal of smart cities programs for users, and, ulti-
mately, their chances of success.
Generally speaking, it is a common observation that users implicitly expect
systems to be secure and privacy preserving. Systems that are perceived by users
as insecure or threatening users' privacy have poor chances of success, and, in any
case, minor chances to establish successfully in the market compared to those
systems that are able to gain users' consent and trust. This general observation
seems to indicate that acceptance by users of security and privacy-preserving
procedures is a target for smart cities, and that research needs to be developed in
this direction too.
According to an authoritative report (Expert Working Group on Smart Cities
Applications and Requirements
2011
), research challenges in this sector can be
classified into the following aspects: handling of the increasing complexity of
