In collaboration with Deloitte Governing Smart Cities: Policy Benchmarks for Ethical and Responsible Smart City Development WHITE PAPER JULY 2021 Cover: Usplash/Ryoji_iwata Inside: Usplash/Tim_Parson; Usplash/Tommy_pla; Usplash/Roland_Denes; Usplash/Fraser_Cottrell Contents 3 Foreword 4 Executive summary 5 Introduction 6 1.1 Cities adjusting to the new paradigm 6 1.2 The G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance and a new policy roadmap 10 2 Emerging trends in smart city governance 13 3 Conclusion 15 4 Appendices 16 Appendix 1: ICT accessibility in public procurement 18 Appendix 2: Privacy impact assessment 20 Appendix 3: Accountability for cybersecurity 22 Appendix 4: Dig Once for digital infrastructure 24 Appendix 5: Open data 26 Contributors 27 Acknowledgements 28 Endnotes This document is published by the World Economic Forum as a contribution to a project, insight area or interaction. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed herein are a result of a collaborative process facilitated and endorsed by the World Economic Forum but whose results do not necessarily represent the views of the World Economic Forum, nor the entirety of its Members, Partners or other stakeholders. © 2021 World Economic Forum. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system. Governing Smart Cities: Policy Benchmarks for Ethical and Responsible Smart City Development 2 July 2021 Governing Smart Cities: Policy Benchmarks for Ethical and Responsible Smart City Development Foreword Cities need better governance to build resilience and improve technology practices. Jeff Merritt Miguel Eiras Antunes Yoshitaka Tanaka Head, Internet of Things and Global Smart Cities Leader, Consulting Chief Strategy Urban Transformation, World Deloitte Global, Portugal Officer, Deloitte, Japan Economic Forum The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the This is the first report by the World Economic importance of resilience in societies across the Forum on the state of technology governance world. The crisis has seen cities, in developed and in cities. The report tracks the efforts of the G20 developing nations alike, reaching for data and Global Smart Cities Alliance, which seeks to tools to get real-time intelligence and make targeted advance the responsible and ethical use of smart interventions to save lives. Digital tools are a step city technologies. The Alliance and its partners towards realizing the “smart city” that technologists represent more than 200,000 cities and local have been anticipating for years. governments, leading companies, start-ups, research institutions and civil society communities. The crisis has also highlighted challenges for policy, The World Economic Forum acts as its secretariat. governance and operations that have been around since the idea of smart cities first came about – in This report is possible only because of the close relation to how data is secured, how people’s partnership between the World Economic Forum privacy is protected, how inclusion is ensured, and and Deloitte. how different agencies and organizations can share data quickly. As we look at how to recover from the pandemic and invest in improving resilience to meet the next crisis, we need to ensure that governments address policy gaps that slow down our responsiveness. Governing Smart Cities: Policy Benchmarks for Ethical and Responsible Smart City Development 3 Executive summary As cities adjust to the new post-pandemic paradigm, there is a need to focus on policies for the responsible and ethical use of technology. This report, Governing Smart Cities, provides a this shift. The importance of connectivity has benchmark for cities looking to establish policies for been made clear.2 Among the Pioneer Cities, less ethical and responsible governance of their smart than half have a “Dig Once” policy in place to city programmes. It explores current practices ensure that digital infrastructure is installed during relating to five foundational policies: ICT accessibility, street excavations and construction works. This privacy impact assessment, cyber accountability, would accelerate the roll-out of connectivity digital infrastructure and open data. The findings are infrastructure and reduce disruption. Moreover, based on surveys and interviews with policy experts less than one-third of cities have the governance and city government officials from the Alliance’s 36 processes needed to drive connectivity roll-out “Pioneer Cities”. The data and insights presented through a Dig Once policy. in the report come from an assessment of detailed policy elements rather than the high-level indicators – Open data policy is perhaps the only area in often used in maturity frameworks. which most cities in our sample have achieved a level of basic implementation. Even here, Using model policies developed by global only 15% of the Pioneer Cities have integrated experts as a framework, the analysis in this report their open data portals with their wider city reveals serious gaps across cities of all sizes, data infrastructure, which is a necessary step in all geographies and at all levels of economic towards making a city “open by default”. development. Among our Pioneer Cities: These results show that cities today lack the basic – The pandemic has rapidly accelerated digital building blocks to safeguard their interests and transformation and the adoption of city services, ensure the longevity of their smart city. which makes the accessibility of digital city services a vital component of an inclusive city. The report concludes with a call to action for However, less than half of cities have policies in stakeholders – including city leaders, policy- place to embed basic accessibility requirements makers, civil society3 and smart city technology into their procurement of ICT, and less than half vendors. City leaders need to take a longer-term of cities provided evidence that they implement view and identify governance gaps before they these requirements in practice. become material risks. Government officials and policy-makers can use benchmarks such – 80% of cities acknowledge legal obligations for as the model policies offered by the G20 Global privacy and data protection, but less than 25% Smart Cities Alliance to identify and address conduct privacy impact assessments when they these gaps. Civil society organizations can offer deploy new technology. these policy-makers multidimensional assistance including technical advice. Furthermore, smart city – During the pandemic there appears to have been technology vendors should use this opportunity to an increase in cyberattacks on local authorities demonstrate long-term commitment to cities by and services.1 Yet most cities do not have anyone helping them to implement the policies they need. designated as accountable for cybersecurity, nor a cybersecurity plan that is regularly reviewed by All of these stakeholders have a role to play in senior executives. speeding up the adoption of better policies in cities, to ensure they are fit for the challenges they face today. – The pandemic has been defined by homeworking The G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance offers a platform and remote education. But many cities lack the for stakeholders to work together in developing, digital infrastructure needed to support or sustain piloting and scaling better policies for smart cities. Governing Smart Cities: Policy Benchmarks for Ethical and Responsible Smart City Development 4 1 Introduction The G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance has developed policy benchmarks that specify the foundational policies that cities need for ethical smart city development. Governing Smart Cities: Policy Benchmarks for Ethical and Responsible Smart City Development 5 1.1 Cities adjusting to the new paradigm Governments, businesses and societies across economic activity. Seoul and Singapore have used the world have suffered severe disruption from the investments in their data infrastructure to deploy consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic since contact tracing services quickly. But, as the case late 2019, and by April 2020 economic activity had of Singapore has shown, rapid deployment of collapsed almost everywhere. Cities and urban technology can lead to a public backlash.6 Yet areas, the engines of economic growth, faced their cities may struggle to put sustainable policies in biggest public health and economic challenge in place when they are in the middle of a crisis and modern times. searching for solutions. Vaccination programmes have now started, In the future, the drive for resilience and efficiencies and these will play a big part in getting cities could lead to more investment in new technology. and countries back on their feet. However, the As city leaders start looking to technologies pandemic has left behind a trail of economic such as chatbots and facial recognition to find destruction, especially in cities and urban areas. efficiencies and provide new services, we need Mayors are concerned about the impact of the to ensure that policies are in place that embed pandemic on their local economies and finances. ethical and responsible governance. This will Respondents to a Deloitte-ESI survey4 of 167 cities ensure that cities can move quickly to deploy new globally ranked the pandemic and damage to the solutions, without incurring risks regarding privacy, economy as the two biggest external disruptions cybersecurity or sustainability.