Designing for Privacy in Clever Urban Computing

Chapter 3 focuses on doing privacy by design for Clever Urban Computing systems, that is, interconnected physical sensors and AI-based data analytics embedded into buildings, streets, and wider-city infrastructures. Personal data is central to such systems, so accounting for privacy and data protection laws is critical. This chapter charts the emergence of Clever Urban Computing, from ‘smart cities’ towards AI urbanism. Examples show the problematic assumptions and problems underpinning many initiatives. ‘Smart buildings’ are analysed to foreground the longitudinal and infrastructural aspects of designing for privacy. Privacy by design and ‘data protection by design and default’ are analysed at length. Legal analysis concentrates on privacy as a value, alongside the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the EU Data Act 2023. New HCI-led approaches are proposed as examples of Accountable Design. This includes designing for consent through ‘consent trajectories’, developing a ‘privacy by participatory design’ approach, and user-centred data management. Empirical data from an expert interview presents why privacy is hard to design for.