Sidewalk Labs responds to backlash

TORONTO • Sidewalk Labs is now saying that it doesn’t want to own any of the data collected as part of the proposed “smart city” development at Quayside on Toronto’s waterfront, and that all data should be held by an independent “Civic Data Trust.”

In a blog post published Monday, Sidewalk Toronto said that they are proposing that the company will have no special access to the data collected, and anybody doing urban data collection in the Quayside development should have to file a publicly available Responsible Data Impact Assessment with the Civic Data Trust.

“None of the ideas we’re presenting are fixed or final,” Sidewalk Labs head of data governance Alyssa Harvey Dawson wrote in the company blog post.

“They are, however, consistent with our long-standing goal of setting a new standard for responsible data use that protects personal privacy and the public interest while enabling companies, researchers, innovators, governments, and civic organizations to improve urban life using urban data.”

In the last couple months, the New York-based Sidewalk Labs, which is owned by Google parent company

Alphabet, has faced mounting criticism surrounding its proposed development on Toronto’s eastern waterfront.

In early October Saadia Muzaffar, founder of TechGirls Canada, resigned from the Digital Strategy Advisory Panel formed by Waterfront Toronto, the federal-provincial-municipal agency that is redeveloping Toronto’s waterfront, and working with Sidewalk Labs on the Quayside project. Muzaffar said she resigned due to “apathy and a lack of leadership regarding shaky public trust” according to a copy of her resignation letter obtained by The Canadian Press.

The proposal comes just a few days before Waterfront Toronto Digital Strategy Advisory Panel — the body that Muzaffar resigned from in protest — is set to meet on Oct. 18.

GOAL (OF) A NEW STANDARD FOR RESPONSIBLE DATA USE THAT PROTECTS PERSONAL PRIVACY. — ALYSSA HARVEY DAWSON