Report scorns Google's ideas for Toronto smart city
Un projet de quartier « intelligent » qui fait débat.
Depuis 2017, la start-up Sidewalk Labs, filiale de Google, travaille sur l’aménagement d’un quartier "connecté "sur une parcelle de près de 5 hectares à Toronto. Outre le sujet épineux de la collecte de données, le projet suscite de nombreuses critiques.
Acontroversial smart city development in Canada has hit another roadblock after an oversight panel called key aspects of the proposal “irrelevant”, “unnecessary” and “frustratingly abstract” in a new report.
2. The project on Toronto’s waterfront, dubbed Quayside, is a partnership between
1. controversial controversé, polémique / smart intelligent; ici, connecté / development projet immobilier, construction / to hit, hit, hit ici, se heurter/ être confronté à / roadblock ici, obstacle / oversight (de) supervision/contrôle / proposal proposition, projet / irrelevant sans intérêt / report rapport, étude.
2. waterfront ici, partie de la ville située en bordure de lac (Ontario) / to dub appeler, baptiser / partnership partenariat, collaboration / the city and Google’s sister company Sidewalk Labs. It promises “raincoats” for buildings, autonomous vehicles and cuttingedge wood-frame towers, but has faced numerous criticisms in recent months.
"UNWIELDY AND REPETITIVE"
3. The latest critique comes with just over a month to go before the city decides to approve or reject the project. It was prepared by the Digital Strategy Advisory Panel, an arms-length group that advises Waterfront Toronto, which oversees the sprawling development.
4. The group of technology experts called the master plan “somewhat unwieldy and repetitive” in the 99-page document released Tuesday. 5. “Panelists felt that [the Sidewalk Labs master plan] did not appear to put the citizen at the centre of the design process for digital innovations, as was promised in the beginning and is necessary for legitimacy,” the report said. Panelists also felt that certain innovations were “irrelevant or unnecessary”.
6. For months, critics have pointed to the project’s numerous ambiguities, largely around the prospect of mass data collection.
7. “The smart city project on the Toronto waterfront is the most highly evolved version to date of … surveillance capitalism,” said American investor Roger McNamee in a June letter to Toronto city council, in which he called for the project to be scrapped.
8. For its part, Sidewalk Labs has worked to counter fears that data will be shared with third parties, instead advocating for a “data trust” to protect sensitive information.
VYING FOR PRIME LAND
9. In mid-June, however, Sidewalk Labs stirred controversy again when it presented its 1,500page master plan. Waterfront Toronto had initially asked for 12 acres of development, but the Google affiliate instead presented a vision for 190 acres of prime waterfront land.
10. In September, a report expressed concerns over integrating the project into preexisting infrastructure, and also took issue with the format of the master plan itself.
11. While the report is a collection of preliminary comments and not a formal criticism, it suggests a number of concerns remain.
12. Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs have until 31 October to iron out differences in order for the project to win approval.
Sidewalk Labs has worked to counter fears that data will be shared with third parties.