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Submitted via IRC for ErnestGoesToSpace
A Canadian civil liberties group is taking aim at all three tiers of government for allegedly allowing Sidewalk Labs to make decisions about citizens' privacy in Toronto.
A civil liberties group in Canada is suing three tiers of government over potential privacy issues posed by Sidewalk Labs's plan to develop a 12-acre smart city in Toronto, which will be approved or denied later this summer. The lawsuit aims to nullify the partnership that Sidewalk Labs, Google's sibling company, has with the taxpayer-funded organization Waterfront Toronto. (Waterfront Toronto was created jointly by the federal, provincial, and municipal governments.) The Canadian Civil Liberties Association claims that Waterfront Toronto, let alone Sidewalk Labs, doesn't have the jurisdiction to make rules about people's privacy.
The government "sold out our constitutional rights to freedom from surveillance and sold it to the global surveillance mammoth of behavioral data collection: Google," said Michael Bryant, the executive director and general counsel of the CCLA, in a press conference. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association joined with Toronto resident Lester Brown, who lives next to the Quayside neighborhood that Sidewalk Labs is proposing to develop, in suing the government. "Canada, Toronto, you are the lab rats in Google's Sidewalk Lab," Bryant said. "Our job at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is to say to all three levels of government that Canadians should not be Google's lab rat. This lab needs to be shut down and reset."
Source: https://www.fastcompany.com/90336151/sidewalk-labss-smart-city-plans-face-legal-challenge
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:55PM (2 children)
I'd say they'd collect ALL the data they're allowed to collect... and data they're NOT allowed as well.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:52PM
The Cloud Gods are hungry. You mus feed data to the Cloud Gods, or a Terrible Crash will happen, and Trust will be shattered.
Bow down your head, and look at your Holy Screen. The Holy Screen brings you joy, pain, solace, news, and friends, by the grace of the Cloud Gods.
Keep your head down, and stare into the soul of the Gods. There you will find your true self.
And if in doing so, you get hit by a car, you shall be immortal on the Great Tube, for all others to contemplate!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:39PM
Read something about this development a year or two back. I'm with you, they plan to collect everything they can, and more.
It's not surprising that some people are pushing back against the project, this is a former industrial area that is now prime real estate on Lake Ontario. An earlier article, https://www.fastcompany.com/90147178/alphabet-inc-plans-a-beta-city [fastcompany.com] mentions, "plans to move Google’s Canadian headquarters to the development to kickstart its growth."
Toronto is, imo, a very well planned city in some respects. For example, they don't really have a "bad side of town" or slums--low income housing is available in all (most?) areas of the city. I wonder if Google included low income housing in their plans?