The right to privacy refers to the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves, or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. Specifically, in line with the definition provided by the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, the right to privacy is to be distinguished from the fundamental right to data protection, which is more concerned with the manner in which personal data is being collected and processed.
Published in Chapter:
Community Mesh Networks: Citizens' Participation in the Deployment of Smart Cities
Primavera De Filippi (Université Paris II, France & Harvard, USA)
Copyright: © 2015
|Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8282-5.ch014
Abstract
Smart cities embed information and communication technologies (ICT) to create interactive milieus that constitute a bridge between the physical and the digital world. In their attempt to improve citizens' quality of life through a more efficient use and sustainability of resources, smart cities might, however, also raise important concerns as regards the privacy and confidentiality of personal data flows. Insofar as the design of a city's telecommunication infrastructure is likely to affect the nature of social dynamics and human interactions, it should, ideally, be achieved through a coordinated, citizen-centric approach combining integrated ICTs with active citizen participation and intelligent physical, digital and informational resource management. This chapter analyzes the case of community mesh networks as an example of grassroots decentralized communication infrastructures, whose architecture design has important implications for the deployment and configuration of smart cities.