Google’s first urban development raises data concerns

The eastern waterfront of Toronto, where a company named Sidewalk Labs is working with a government agency known as Waterfront Toronto on plans to put up mid-rise apartments, offices, shops and a school on a 12-acre site – a first step toward what it hopes will eventually be a 800-acre development. (Sidewalk Toronto via AP)

By ROB GILLIES
Associated Press

TORONTO (AP) — Heated streets will melt ice and snow on contact. Sensors will monitor traffic and protect pedestrians. Driverless shuttles will carry people to their doors.

A unit of Google’s parent company Alphabet is proposing to turn a rundown part of Toronto’s waterfront into what may be the most wired placd in history — to “fundamentally refine what urban life can be.”

Sidewalk Labs is working with a government agency known as Waterfront Toronto with plans to put up mid-rise apartments, offices, shops and a school on a 12-acre site — a first step toward what it hopes will eventually be a 800-acre development.

High-level interest is clear: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the then-Executive Chairman of Alphabet Eric Schmidt appeared together to announce the plan last October.

But some Canadians are rethinking the privacy implications of giving one of the most data-hungry companies on the planet the means to wire up everything from street lights to pavement. And some want the public to get at least part of the revenue from products developed using Canada’s largest city as an urban laboratory.

“The Waterfront Toronto executives and board are too dumb to realize they are getting played,” said Jim Balsillie, a former BlackBerry chief executive.

“Google knew what they wanted. And the politicians wanted a PR splash and the Waterfront board didn’t know what they are doing. And the citizens of Toronto and Canada are going to pay the price,” Balsillie said.

Complaints about the proposed development prompted Waterfront Toronto to re-do the agreement to ensure a greater role for the official agency, which represents city, provincial and federal governments.

So far the project is still in an early stage. After consultations, the developers plan to present a formal master plan early next year.

Dan Doctoroff, the CEO of Sidewalk Labs, envisions features like pavement that lights up to warn pedestrians of approaching streetcars. Flexible heated enclosures — described as “raincoats” for buildings — will be deployed during Toronto’s bitter winters. Robotic waste-sorting systems will detect when a garbage bin is full and remove it before raccoons descend on the garbage.

“Those are great uses of data that can improve the quality of life of people,’ he said. “That’s what we want to do.”

Sidewalk Labs promotional materials promise “a place that’s enhanced by digital technology and data, without giving up the privacy and security that everyone deserves.”

Doctoroff said the company isn’t looking to make money from people’s personal information in the way that Google does now with search information. He said the plan is to invent so-far-undefined products and services that Sidewalk Labs can market elsewhere.

“People automatically assume because of our relationship to Alphabet and Google that they will be treated one way or another. We have never said anything” about the data issue, he said. “To be honest people should give us some time. Be patient.”

But that wasn’t good enough for Julie Di Lorenzo, a prominent Toronto developer who resigned from the Waterfront Toronto board over the project. Di Lorenzo said information and what Google wants to do with it should be front and center in the discussions. She also believes the government agency has given the Google affiliate too much power over how the project develops.

“How can (Waterfront Toronto), a corporation established by three levels of democratically elected government, have shared values with a limited, for-profit company whose premise is embedded data collection?” Di Lorenzo asked.

Di Lorenzo asks who will own the autonomous vehicles. “Is the municipality maintaining the fleet or forcing you to share your vehicle?” She also asks if people who don’t want their data collected will be allowed to live there.

The concerns have intensified following a series of privacy scandals at Facebook and Google. A recent Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on iPhones and Android devices store location-tracking data even if you use privacy settings that are supposed to turn them off.

Bianca Wylie, an advocate of open government, said it remains deeply troubling that Sidewalk Labs still hasn’t said who will own data produced by the project or how money will be made from that data. Google is here to make money, she said, and Canadians should benefit from any data or products developed from it.

“We are not here to be someone’s research and development lab,” she said, “to be a loss leader for products they want to sell globally.”

Natalie Raffoul, a patent lawyer out of Ottawa, said the fact that the current agreement leaves questions concerning ownership of data for a later date shows that it wasn’t properly drafted. It also  means patents derived from the data will default to Google.

“We just can’t be too trusting of corporations,” she said.

But Burstyn, the Waterfront Toronto chair, said the master plan will come as a response to data concerns. The agency wants to make Toronto a global hub of a rising new industry, she said.

“Everybody gets worried about the digital and technology aspects that might run amok,” she said. “I don’t worry about that as much as I see the opportunities for developing a really interesting, innovative community.”

Adam Vaughan, the federal lawmaker whose district includes the development, said the current debate about big data and urban infrastructure is coming to cities throughout the world and he would rather Toronto be at the forefront of discussion.

“Google is ahead of governments globally and locally. That’s a cause for concern but it’s also an opportunity,” Vaughan said.