Imagine being filmed 24/7. Knowing someone is watching you the whole time, would your behaviors and decisions remain the same? When governments or tech companies promote “smart” cities projects, they talk about how having more data about us could make things better. What they don’t talk about is the way having surveillance technologies embedded in our physical surroundings would change the way we behave and impact our fundamental rights and freedoms.
That matters, because these smart cities are no longer hypothetical. In Saudi Arabia and Egypt, they are the pet projects of dictators who seized power through coups. These dictators are…
