Future-proofing the city

The objective of this event is to gain a holistic understanding of the ethical and human rights implications of the algorithmic, biometric and smart city technologies that have been quietly invading our streets.

Smart city policies have aimed to make urban spaces safer, more sustainable and innovative by means of big data, biometric technologies and, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI), but these technologies create risks for human and fundamental rights. Scholars have identified certain smart city projects as advancing gender discrimination, facilitate surveillance creep and risk chilling effects on freedoms of movement, association and thought. Implementation of emotion recognition technology in the streets further undermines our rights to human dignity and autonomy. In the worst case scenario, they may enable digital repression.

Our workshop bring together academics from interdisciplinary academic communities to discuss ways to identify and govern these human rights risks - future-proofing the smart city.

The event offers 

• academics a possibility to learn about emerging, international interdisciplinary research on the human rights-based approach to the governance of algorithmic, biometric and smart city technologies 
• practitioners an opportunity to hear on the most recent research on the human rights dimensions and risks of smart city technologies and hear about and comment on the proposed solutions to govern them

If you wish to join us, please visit our registration page.

For any further questions about the event, don't hesitate to contact us at conference@legaltechlab.fi