Personal And Ethical Implications Of Government's Smart State Plan

Assume that an Australian State Government has reviewed the Singapore Government’s Smart Nation Plan and has decided to implement their own Smart State Plan. This will initially consist of a network of smart sensors and cameras at traffic lights, bus stops, rubbish bins, etc. in their CBD to monitor citizen’s behaviour and address street crime.

1. Discuss what you see as the personal and ethical implications for your privacy of the proposed Government’s Smart Sensor Network by looking at:

a. The types or categories of people affected by this proposal, 

b. What behavioural changes you might expect to see from normal citizens,

c. Would you expect to see changes in individual behaviours, such as choice of activities, changes in time schedules, etc.

The next part of the Government’s plan is to deploy a Smart Wi-Fi Network which will consist of a series of sensor boxes to act as WiFi hotspots throughout the city. This would allow the introduction of a heterogeneous network where smart phones and other devices could seamless switch between mobile data and WiFi.

2. Discuss what you see as the personal and ethical implications for your privacy of the proposed Government’s Smart WiFi Network by looking at:

a. The types or categories of people affected by this proposal,

b. What behavioural changes you might expect to see from normal citizens using their mobile devices in the CBD,

c. Would you expect to see changes in individual behaviours, such as choice of activities, changes in time schedules, etc.

d. What are the implications for you If you had sensitive information on your mobile device that you did not want to share?

The Smart State Plan will also enrol all citizens with a Digital Identity to ensure that they can correctly be identified and access services provided by the state both electronically and physically.

3. If you were visiting the State Capital after the Smart State Plan has rolled out, do you think that the use of a digital identity would assist you to maintain your privacy while using your mobile phone or devices during your visit? Discuss the reasons for your answer.  

4. What steps do you think that you could take to ensure the security and privacy of your digital identity while operating your mobile device(s) in this environment? Discuss each step that you would take along with its advantages and disadvantages.

Task 1: Personal and Ethical Implication of Government’s Smart Sensor Network

Types of people	activities
People with reckless attitude at traffic	Often breaks traffic rules such as marinating permitted speed at traffic, follow traffic signal
People who does not care about environment	Often throw garbage at improper places
People who commit crime at congested area such as bus stops and other public place	Doing illegal activities such as stealing
Government agencies dedicated for collecting garbage form public places	Manage garbage collection from public places
Traffic police	Marinating law and order at traffic

Due to installation of smart networks and camera at traffic light people will be more conscious at maintaining proper law and order at the traffic because of constant monitoring, at least what people will be thinking. There will be an increase in the number of people using the rubbish bean properly installed at various public places. A notion of cleanliness will be established among the people if not naturally, but for the increased level of monitoring.  People will think twice before committing anything that violates law and order as they will be caught easily from analysing the camera footage. However the feeling of being constantly monitored will make people worried about their privacy, of course at the standard what is permitted in public places.

In order to avoid heavy traffic and eliminating the need for breaking traffic rules to reach destination in time, people will try to follow proper time schedule and hence they will be more organised in terms of planning their schedule for travel.

People will be more accustomed to use the rubbish beans installed at various places for disposing garbage. Now it will not come naturally, some people will even dislike such thing, but at the end all be following the same thing which in turn will contribute to cleaner environment.

As it will be known to the people that avoiding the consequences of committing a crime will not be easy at all due to the increasing level of monitoring. Hence people will not use these palaces as crime spot which are often most targeted due to less amount of security.  

The proposal of the free Wi-Fi in the CBD will affect a range of people based on their activity. Bellow it is presented in a table format

Types of people	activities
Peoples who likes online entertainment	Downloading, viewing and sharing content across various genre
Peoples who like social engagement	More and more engagement with social media platform
Peoples who like to study	Accessing study material from online
Peoples who travels a lot	Checking travel related info for hassle free travel experience
Peoples who are not so good in managing household activities	Managing household activities like shopping , paying bills for various household needs
Peoples who have online business	Advertise online for attracting people to grow business.

Whenever people associate with new activities, it is most probable that their behaviour is likely to be effected. In the age of technology, the behaviour of people has changed dramatically than what it used to be before. In the age of internet, a lot of people are connected, yet there are so many people that still don’t have access to internet or better to say a lot of people has a limited internet connection. Hence, when these people will be introduced to an internet connection that is free, the impact will be on this people more. A public Wi-Fi is always an attraction to the people as it provide free connectivity to all the people. A free connectivity will result in increased online activities. A lot of people loves to embrace the digital world but does not afford it due to cost of having internet everywhere. A behavioural change is expected form this people as they will prefer online activities over obtaining it offline. Such activities include purchase of product, make payment. People will visit less to the offline store for shopping as it is much more convenient to order them online. People will then pay less attention for organising thing as they will tend to manage everything online. This fact that internet makes people less organised is not blame on the internet alone, it has something to do with the behavioural approach of the people who associate with it. People will try to be updated with the news around the world as it will be easier to access. Social engagement will increase through the virtual platform due to easier access to the online world. Overall there will be increased online activities among the people in collective. As it will be easier to connect with the virtual social life, people who finds it difficult to communicate in public, will be more inclined towards it and as they will be more comfortable in this form of communication they are likely to share with others more easily. This will bring behavioural change in this group of people for sure.  

a) Types of people affected by this proposal:

Now a days, thanks to the advancement, a new form of entertainment is now taking precedence. Everything people finds entertaining, is available online. Everything from movies, plays, song, and tech is available online. Now with the free Wi-Fi, the preference for the digital entertainment will increase. A lot of users will now download movies, song from the internet and will less likely prefer to buy or rent it offline. In addition to the free versions, contents that needs to be purchased or needs to be rented, is also available online. Although this will influence people of all age groups, but it is expected to see more participants from the younger groups.

A free public will be of great benefits for the traveller. A lot of travellers like to explore the city on their own than to be guided by someone else as they are completely strangers. Now it is not difficult to find information about a place from finding best attractions to visit to book cabs and hotel at the best price. A free and public Wi-Fi will surely make the travel experience easier and they will be much more confident and independent while exploring the city comfortable on their own.

People who love to study often find it difficult to go to public library to borrow book and return it in time to avoid extra charges. The presence of a free Wi-Fi will help to download books online and read it anywhere anytime. In addition to that there will be no requirement of returning the book. Hence people might access the library less and prefer reading online for convenience.

An easier access to the internet will increase the number of people who wants to connect with friends all over the world in the shortest time possible. A more social engagement will make people less focused in the world that actually exists around them. People will be busier in chatting, updating status, sharing pictures with friends and followers which people might find hard to refrain from.

Today jobs not only require to be present at the office and performs duty that individuals are assigned to. As the technology is shaping the world, it is also influencing the way communication takes place. Electronic communications like email are more preferred today for it much more effective. A seamless access to this is required to manage the job life more easily. Professionals and to some extents the students too will make use of the free internet to see emails, reply to them so that no important message is missed that matters most.

The presence of digital economy is already becoming strong. People these days prefer to go cashless as the payment with digital wallets are much easier and hassle free. No requirement for carrying cash and cards, all it needs is a smart phone with an active internet connection. Hence with the free Wi-Fi it is expected that there will be increased number of users opting for digital payments for all payment related matters.

b) Behavioural change from normal people:

In order to protect sensitive information while using the mobile device in the public Wi-Fi, some steps are recommended bellow (Sathiaseelan et al., 2016):

• The internet traffic must be secured with the help of VPN. An active VPN connection while surfing the internet will ensure that the all the internet traffic will be transferred through a secured and encrypted data tunnel,, thus increasing the security
• If VPN is not configured, it should be made sure that each time the device is connected to the internet via the public Wi-Fi, the session is encrypted. For this, sites which have HTTPS in the URL instead of HTTP, should be used.
• Transaction which uses FTP or the file transfer protocol should be avoided.
• When connecting to a public Wi-Fi hotspot it should be checked whether there more than one hotspot with the same name. These hotspots should be avoided as they are often hard to recognize which one is more legitimate and hence should be avoided to be in the safer side for protecting sensitive information on the mobile device.  

A digital identity is the information that is stored online to identify the presence of the individual, organizations or the electronic devices that are operated online. The presence of unique identifiers or the user patterns generated through the interactions of the system with the network makes it possible. As the users share personal informations to avail some service online like shopping, social networking , this adds to the digital identities of the individual or the devices used. Digital data are often contextual as it contains sensitive information (Abelson et al., 2016). The data is collected by the service provider for authenticating the user online. In a world where digitalization is major trend, the protection of user’s data is major issue. Hence, maintain online privacy is an important issue. Hackers are in constant effort to steal these sensitive data available online for financial gain. Hence the online data are not safe as people thinks. Digital identity is an important step towards securing these data and maintain privacy.  Digital identity is capable of addressing these issues which makes it an effective choice for the online data security:

Due to an increased demand in online purchase, there is an increase in the transaction volume. Now in order to maintain these transaction customised and safe for individuals, digital identity important. The presence of digital identity makes it possible to authenticate the transaction by individual users so that the transaction is only performed for whom it actually belongs to (Costa & Torres, 2015). Thus making the process much more customised and easier to organise.

With addition to the volume, the financial activities has become much more complex with addition to new technology to make it much more convenient and attractive. Although this has improved consumer experience, it has made the process complex in nature. In order to address this complexity the users should be identified properly to enable the service correctly. This is where digital identity is an effective choice.

Digital identity enforces strong regulatory standards for data protections. The standards make it mandatory for the service provider to ensure that the data is protected with strong security measures and it must be made clear to the users that how the data is collected and share across networks. However, to ensure that the users have to provide necessary informations identified as digital identity as demanded by the service provider to avail a particular service (Diamandaki, 2014).

Digital identity consist of several layers (Kennedy, 2016), serving different purpose ensures data privacy in the following way:

This layer ensure that the online activities is governed in a such a way that there is no issue with the data consistency and the data is perfectly coordinated for better security. If the data is inconsistence or not coordinated properly, it is easier to hack or steal.

This layer ensure that all the user attributes are properly collected , stored and most importantly protected with strong security standards. Data attribute is an important step towards data security. It identifies data in terms of the sensitivity and importance and thus applying stronger security for the data that needs more protection.

c) Changes in individual behaviour:

This layer deals with the user authentication. Authentication is important measure of data security. A lot of inconsistence authentication is performed for acquiring digital data. However, this particular layer ensures that inconsistent authentication is avoided to ensure optimal data security.

This layer provide mechanism to exchange attributes between different parties. Although the data is exchanged across different platforms, the exchange of attributes ensures that the importance and privacy of the data is consistent throughout the process.

The above discussion might give the impression that the data is highly secure with digital identity. Although this is true that digital identity is an effective way to maintain data security, it has limitations too. Before identifying the limitations, it is important to have a look at the level of information that is collected with the digital identity (Buccafurri, 2015). Some services that are available online only requires some basic information like username, password and an email address register for a service. However, the information that the user wants to share with the service completely depends on the individual users. Sometimes people often creates password that are not so strong and it can be easily interpreted by the hackers (Mosco, 2016). If one becomes successful in stealing the password, it is easier to steal the identity of the owner and hence becomes easier to perform actions on behalf of the owner. Although some service provides two step verification before the information becomes accessible, but it is not impossible to hack that too. Some services makes it optional for the user that what kind of informations is shared online, other services makes it mandatory to share the details such as passport scans, physical addresses, Social Security numbers, and birthdate details to form digital identity. These information are highly sensitive in nature and reveals a lot of personal information about the user. Services that asks for such sensitive information are opening of savings account or availing passport and specially services offered by government (Khatchatourov, Laurent & Levallois-Barth, 2015). One problem with the digital identity is that the concept is still relatively new as compared to the physical identity (Laurent & Bouzefrane, 2015). Due to this techniques that are deployed for securing these data, still requires modifications and a lot of issues needs to be addressed. Although, companies claims that they ensures the privacy of the customer data, security flaws is there. Hence it is not possible to protect the digital data by just having digital identity. The presence of digital identity helps the users to have secure accounts but it exposes a lot of data online about than the individual think. Hence a lot of criminal activities are performed online to steal these data, which is relatively easier (Laurent et al., 2015). The problem with the digital identity is not exchange of data, it is how the data is actually exchanged online and the activities performed with it after it is shared by the users. Hence, it can be said that digital identity is an effective approach for creating online data privacy but requires some issues to be addressed for strengthening the security techniques (Kolko, 2015).

Task 2: Personal and Ethical Implications on Government’s Smart Wi-Fi Network

The digital identity, as it contains a lot of information about the person online is always at target of the hackers. Once the identity is stolen, a lot of activities like financial transaction is easier to perform on behalf of the identity owner. Now although it is possible to protect the identity completely, some actions should be initiated from the user side so that it is not possible for the hackers to steal that identity easily (Elbirt, 2015). These steps are:

Strong password:

Whenever any account is created online, it should be made sure that password created for the account should be strong. A preferred way to create a strong password is to make the password at least 8 character long with a combination of alphabets and special cases. Another thing which should be remembered is that every account related to the financial activities should be secured with different password (Windley, 2015). Otherwise, a hack into one of the account will put all the accounts at risk.

Verification of authenticate site:

One thing that should always be remembered that not every site exist on the internet is authenticate one. Some sites are created for stealing user data and some site even do not have enough security for preventing data hack. Hence, it is important to identify which sites are authentic and have better security in place. Although nothing on the internet is secure as such, however visiting trusted sites will make it relatively more secure. There are some possible and verified ways which let the user know about the authenticity and security of the site.

The sites which are secured must have the symbol “s” in the URL of the website. The letter s confirms that the site is secured via strong encryption technology. Sites which does not have this feature should be avoided, especially for doing any financial related activities.

Selective about information shared online:

People, in order to make the social networking profile more attractive or without any special purpose often share personal information more than what is needed. It might have broader impact on the security than what people thinks or ignore in most of the cases. If the social profile is somehow hacked, a lot of information put there will be visible to the hackers and that might be used for exploiting other profiles that contains similar information (Ribble, Bailey & Ross, 2015). Hence it is advisable to be selective about what and how much information is shared online for create better protection for the digital identity.  

Identify emails and messages:

Emails and messages that are lucrative in nature, especially those promises giveaway of prize money, should be avoided at any cost. These emails and messages, in most of the cases turns out to be an easier way for the hackers to steal personal information about the users. Another things to be noted that links provided in the emails and messages should not be clicked as this another way to extract personal information by hacking the devices from where those links are accessed (Liginlal, Sim & Khansa, 2014). The system once hacked, becomes vulnerable and becomes easier for others to obtain whatever data they want to extract. Hence these steps should be avoided for better security of the digital identity.

Two step verification:

The safest way as recommended by expert is to form some kind of smart card that will provide digital security in a personalised way. Another effective approach is to turn on the two step verification process for accessing all kind of digital data related to the digital identity of any individual. The combination of both will ensure optimal security as it will require others to prove the required authentication through this two-step verification process before the data become accessible to anyone else other than the owner (Palfrey & Gasser, 2015).  

These are the several possible ways that are recommended for securing the digital identity online as there are constant effort to steal these data that are of major importance.

References:

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