Personal And Ethical Implications Of Australian State Government's Smart Nation 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 citizens 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 WiFi 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.

Types or Categories of People Affected

a) Types or Categories of People Affected

Australian State Government has eventually reviewed the Smart Nation Plan of Singapore Government and has taken the decision for implementing Smart State Plan (Adamo et al., 2015). This particular plan comprises of the network of several cameras or smart sensors at the traffic signals, rubbish bins as well as bus stops. This plan helped them within their CBD for monitoring the behaviour of citizens and also addressing street crime. The personal as well as ethical implication for the security of the Smart Sensor Network of the Government solely affects the types or categories of citizens (De Gante, Aslan & Matrawy, 2014).

The smart sensor is the device, which eventually takes the input from physical environment and then utilizes the built in computing resources for performing several predefined functionalities on the detection of typical input and processing the data even before passing this data (Sim et al., 2013). These smart sensors help in enabling the accurate or automatic collection of the data with lesser erroneous noise within the appropriate recorded data. All of these devices could be utilized for the control and monitoring mechanisms within the wider variety of several environments like smart grids, exploration of applications and battlefield reconnaissance. The smart sensor is extremely vital and the integral element within IoT or Internet of Things. The incrementing prevalent environment could be outfitted with the UID or unique identifier (Lau, 2015). The ability for transmitting data on the similar network or Internet is present in smart sensor. The most relevant implementation of the smart sensor is as the component of any WSAN or wireless sensor and actuator network. 

Smart sensor is mostly useful for the elderly people in any nation (Magno et al., 2015). The Australian government will be helping the elderly people by implementing this particular plan of Smart Nation, similar to Singapore government. Moreover, crime against children would be reduced to a greater extent. When the smart sensors and cameras will be implemented in the bus stops, traffic lights and rubbish bins, the citizens of the country will be extremely benefitted from this (Ilyas & Mahgoub, 2016). The street crime will be much lesser in respect to any other country. Hence, the types of people, who will be much affected to the proposal, are elderly people and children.

b) Behavioural Changes from Normal Citizens

Several types of behavioural changes will be noticed from the normal citizens, once this smart sensor and cameras will be installed by the Australian government (Maier & Verikoukis, 2014). Street crime will be reduced and hence behavioural changes will occur within the citizens. The first and the foremost change that will be noticed is that there will be lesser amount of rules breaking in traffic signals. Traffic rules will be maintained by every citizen. Crime will be reduced for children or elderly people. Since, the cameras and smart sensors will be deployed in the rubbish bins, the normal citizens will be using these bins for throwing their garbage and thus streets will be free from garbage (Rakovic et al., 2016). The behaviour of citizens will be eventually monitored within the CBD of Australian State Government. The bus stops will also be monitored by smart sensor network and thus irregularity of buses will be stopped. Moreover, people will be punctual to a greater extent.

Behavioural Changes from Normal Citizens

c) Changes in Individual Behaviours

Apart from the behavioural changes in normal citizens, changes in the individual behaviour are also expected to be seen within the Australian State Government (Sivaraman et al., 2015). The first and the most important change that is expected to be seen is the reduction of rules breaking. Each and every citizen will be following rules like traffic and legal. Moreover, the selection of activities would also be altered with the implementation of this smart sensor network within the Australian State Government. The next significant change that is expected to be seen in every individual is change in the time schedule (Lee et al., 2013). Every individual is expected to turn much punctual in respect to previous state plans. With the help of this type of sensor, they can easily track their own time, without any type of hassle and hence the time schedule is being maintained easily and promptly. The fourth change in behaviour within every individual that is expected to be seen is using rubbish bins and not throwing garbage on the road (Zeng, Pathak & Mohapatra, 2016). Since, they will be having a fear of being caught; this particular change is obvious for every individual. Thus, the above mentioned changes are common for the individuals and these could be expected from them. 

a) Types or Categories of People Affected

The Australian State Government has also planned to deploy a Smart WiFi Network within the city. This particular network will be consisting of a series of sensor boxes for acting as WiFi hotspots within the entire city (Wenbo, Quanyu & Zhenwei, 2015). This would be allowing the introduction of a heterogeneous network where smart phones or any other mobile devices for seamlessly switching between WiFi and mobile data.

Wireless Fidelity or WiFi technology is the specific technology for the radio wireless LAN of devices. This particular Internet technology is considered as the fastest means of Internet and hence deploying Smart WiFi Network will be an extremely important and significant step for the growth of the city (Denkovski et al., 2015). Various types of people will be affected with this typical technology. The first and the foremost type of people affected with the Smart WiFi Network is the youth generation. The youth generation uses the maximum amount of Internet technology within their lifestyle. Hence, they will be the most affected people with this smart WiFi network. The second most affected people will be children. After the youth generation, children are the most affected people. Smart WiFi network will help them in their education and other purposes (Ayyash et al., 2016). Moreover, with the help of this particular network, parents will be able to track down the activities of their children and thus cyber crime will be reduced to a great extent. Moreover, this particular network will also be maintaining privacy and security for every citizen and thus they can freely use their Internet technology without many complexities.

Changes in Individual Behaviours

b) Behavioural Changes from Normal Citizens

Various changes are expected to be foreseen from the citizens, who are utilizing their respective mobile devices within the CBD in Australian State Government (Maier & Verikoukis, 2014). The most significant behavioural change that is expected from the normal citizens is using Internet technology for better reasons. This type of activity will be reducing cyber crime from the city, since the network will be tracking any type of illegal or non ethical activity. The next behavioural change that is expected from the normal citizen is saving mobile data and thus costs will be reduced (Rakovic et al., 2016). Since, the citizens will be able to seamlessly switch between their mobile data and Wireless Fidelity, the excess usage of mobile data will be reduced to a great extent.

c) Changes in Individual Behaviours

Apart from the changes in the behaviour of normal citizens, the changes in the individual behaviours are also expected to be seen. The most significant change that is expected to be seen in the individual behaviours is using lesser amount of mobile data (Sivaraman et al., 2015). Each and every individual can be able to seamlessly switch between their mobile data and Wireless Fidelity or WiFi and thus wastage of mobile data will be stopped. The second important change that is expected to be seen from every individual is that they will not be involved in any type of cyber crime or cyber threat. Legal rules will be maintained with extremity and hence discipline will be maintained. The Smart WiFi Network comprises of the series of sensor boxes for acting as WiFi hotspots (Lee et al., 2013). Hence, the State Government will be able to track down every illegal or unauthorized activity. For the children, the parents will be able to track down their activities and thus their focus will not be shifted to any type wrong deed.

d) Implications after having Sensitive Information on Mobile Device

Since, the Smart WiFi network is forming an entire network with wireless fidelity or WiFi hotspots, the sensitive information is always at stake for any individual. Any specific individual never wants to share their personal or sensitive information or data over a public hotspot (Zeng, Pathak & Mohapatra, 2016). The main reason of this fear is losing confidentiality and integrity from the data or information. However, the Australian State Government has kept in mind regarding this threat and they have implemented various security features within their smart WiFi network. There is almost no chance of losing any type of confidential or sensitive information, present in the mobile devices of the individuals, from that particular WiFi network (Wenbo, Quanyu & Zhenwei, 2015). Hence, this particular smart WiFi network will be extremely efficient and effective for the citizens of Australian government.

Implications for Privacy and Security

The Smart State Plan would even enrol each and every citizen with a specific Digital Identity for ensuring that all of them could correctly be recognized and could access the services that are been provided by the state both physically and electronically (Beck, 2015).  The security and privacy of the citizens is kept on top and thus there is no chance of losing sensitive data or information from personal mobile devices. The Digital Identity is the specific information on any entity that is utilized by the computer systems for representing to any particular external agent (Grassi, Garcia & Fenton, 2017). This agent could be anything, like a person, an application, an organization or even a device. The information that is contained within a digital identity eventually enables for the purpose of authentication and assessments of a user, who is interacting with any of the business system over the Internet connectivity. Digital identities are responsible for allowing access to the services and computers, which they are providing to be completely automated and made possible for the system to be mediated (Williams et al., 2013).

The Smart State Plan has ensured that with the help of this digital identity, no sensitive information will be leaked and every individual can enjoy his or her privacy and security immensely. Moreover, the information will not be publicly available and will not be anonymized with the help of digital identity (Stoller, 2013). This digital identity is even utilized in various methods, which require data regarding the persons that are stored within the computer system and are to be linked with the national as well as civil identities.

The utilization of the digital identities is extremely widespread. This digital identity solely refers to the complete collectiveness of information that is generated by the online activities of that particular citizen (Zaidi, Rahulamathavan & Rajarajan, 2013). This type of information mainly includes username and password, online search activity, birth dates, social security numbers, as well as purchasing history. The social and the legal effects of the digital identities are extremely challenging and complex (Vivienne, 2016).

The privacy of the mobile services is maintained with the implementation and deployment of digital identities within the Smart State Plan (Koole & Parchoma, 2013). The various services are as follows:

i) The first service is Identity Federation that helps to enable single sign on.

ii) The next service is easy on board portal services.

Digital Identity and Mobile Devices

iii) The third service is End User permission based information sharing service.

iv) The next service is simple mobile login for accessing the web services with only one click experience (Ko & Choo, 2015).

v) The fifth service is the secured authentication as well as transaction with the utilization of the unique secret code.

vi) The final service of digital identity for privacy purpose is the qualified digital signatures with the proper utilization of the advanced digital certificates and even public key signature service.

The increasing digital economies would be bringing the massive opportunities since the connectivity is increased and distance is evaporated as the major barrier (Zaidi, Rahulamathavan & Rajarajan, 2013). The access to the state advantages and the range of several other services has the significant potential for becoming faster, easier, and even more inclusive. For the citizens of Australian State Government, the digital identities will bring privacy as well as security for the information or data they would be sharing. However, for ensuring that this digital identity is absolutely safe and secure and truly inclusive for everyone to use, this needs a thoughtful and shared development of the required balances and checks (Williams et al., 2013).

The various steps for ensuring privacy or security of the digital identities within the Smart State Plan are given below:

i) Reduction of using Social Media Profile: This is the first step for ensuring security and privacy of digital identity (Stoller, 2013). The maximum data is shared over Internet, the easier it becomes for someone to acquire it.

The main advantage of this step is that sensitive information will not be lost at any chance and the main disadvantage of this step is that the user will be detached from the rest of the world.

ii) Selection about sharing social security number: The second step is being choosy regarding sharing of the social security number (Vivienne, 2016). When someone gets the access of this information and has the data such as address, bank details or birth date, they could easily steal the identity and could take out the credit cards as well as pile up the other debt. Moreover, the last four digits of the social security numbers must only be utilized whenever required.

The main advantage of this step is that bank details of the citizens will be safe and secured and the main disadvantage of this step is that the any type of transaction could not be done without sharing the social security number over the Internet (Ko & Choo, 2015).

iii) Locking down of Hardware: The third step is locking down of the hardware. The personal computer should be set up with a password whenever it is waking up from sleep or even booting up (Grassi, Garcia & Fenton, 2017).  Similar thing is to be done with the mobile devices. A proper password should be kept for locking or unlocking the mobile services. This code is required whenever the phone is being used or an application is being installed. This would be helpful in locating the phones or tablets whenever they are stolen or lost, as well as wiping it or locking it for cleaning of any data, so that stranger cannot get any access to the data that is saved in it (Beck, 2015). In addition, anti malware software and applications should be present in every device.

The main advantage of this step is that no virus effect or data loss will occur and the main disadvantage of this step is that every time the device has to be unlocked with password.

iv) Turn on private browsing: Another important step is turning on private browsing. This helps to delete the cookies with digital identities and hence the services and devices are absolutely safe and secured (Vivienne, 2016). Any type of online shopping and browsing is much more secured with the help of private browsing. Digital identities can be easily deployed and implemented with the security.

The main advantage of this step is that cookies could be easily deleted and the main disadvantage of this step is that few sites are blocked and could not be accessed with private browsing.

v) Using of a password vault that generates and remembers strong and unique passwords:Maximum people have the knowledge better than using the identical password in more than one application or website (Zaidi, Rahulamathavan & Rajarajan, 2013). In general, this could be impossible for remembering the different one for the dozens of the online services that are being used. The major problem with utilizing the identical password in more than one place is when anyone gets access over the password, for example, through a specific phishing attack; they could easily access all the accounts of the user and could cause every type of trouble (Lau, 2015). For the purpose of eliminating this particular dilemma, a password manager is to be used that would not only remember all the passwords, but also would be generating extremely strong as well as unique one after automatically filling them into the login fields with only one click of the button.

References

Adamo, F., Attivissimo, F., Carducci, C. G. C., & Lanzolla, A. M. L. (2015). A smart sensor network for sea water quality monitoring. IEEE Sensors Journal, 15(5), 2514-2522.

Ayyash, M., Elgala, H., Khreishah, A., Jungnickel, V., Little, T., Shao, S., ... & Freund, R. (2016). Coexistence of WiFi and LiFi toward 5G: concepts, opportunities, and challenges. IEEE Communications Magazine, 54(2), 64-71.

Beck, E. N. (2015). The invisible digital identity: Assemblages in digital networks. Computers and Composition, 35, 125-140.

De Gante, A., Aslan, M., & Matrawy, A. (2014, June). Smart wireless sensor network management based on software-defined networking. In Communications (QBSC), 2014 27th Biennial Symposium on (pp. 71-75). IEEE.

Denkovski, D., Rakovic, V., Ichkov, A., Atanasovski, V., & Gavrilovska, L. (2015, September). REM-facilitated Smart-WiFi. In Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DySPAN), 2015 IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 277-278). IEEE.

Grassi, P. A., Garcia, M. E., & Fenton, J. L. (2017). Digital identity guidelines. NIST Special Publication, 800, 63-3.

Ilyas, M., & Mahgoub, I. (2016). Smart Dust: Sensor network applications, architecture and design. CRC press.

Ko, R., & Choo, R. (2015). The Cloud Security Ecosystem: Technical, Legal, Business and Management Issues. Syngress.

Koole, M., & Parchoma, G. (2013). The web of identity: A model of digital identity formation in networked learning environments. In Digital identity and social media (pp. 14-28). IGI Global.

Lau, Y. (2015). Cybercrime in cloud: Risks and responses in Hong Kong, Singapore.

Lee, K., Lee, J., Yi, Y., Rhee, I., & Chong, S. (2013). Mobile data offloading: How much can WiFi deliver?. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), 21(2), 536-550.

Magno, M., Polonelli, T., Benini, L., & Popovici, E. (2015). A low cost, highly scalable wireless sensor network solution to achieve smart LED light control for green buildings. IEEE Sensors Journal, 15(5), 2963-2973.

Maier, M., & Verikoukis, C. (2014, July). Inside smart FiWi-HetNets and the explosion of mobile data traffic. In Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 2014 16th International Conference on (pp. 1-4). IEEE.

Rakovic, V., Denkovski, D., Atanasovski, V., & Gavrilovska, L. (2016, May). Radio resource management based on radio environmental maps: Case of Smart-WiFi. In Telecommunications (ICT), 2016 23rd International Conference on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.

Sim, S. H., Li, J., Jo, H., Park, J. W., Cho, S., Spencer Jr, B. F., & Jung, H. J. (2013). A wireless smart sensor network for automated monitoring of cable tension. Smart Materials and Structures, 23(2), 025006.

Sivaraman, V., Gharakheili, H. H., Vishwanath, A., Boreli, R., & Mehani, O. (2015, October). Network-level security and privacy control for smart-home IoT devices. In Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), 2015 IEEE 11th International Conference on (pp. 163-167). IEEE.

Stoller, E. (2013). Our shared future: Social media, leadership, vulnerability, and digital identity. Journal of College and Character, 14(1), 5-10.

Vivienne, S. (2016). Digital identity and everyday activism: Sharing private stories with networked publics. Springer.

Wenbo, Y., Quanyu, W., & Zhenwei, G. (2015, July). Smart home implementation based on Internet and WiFi technology. In Control Conference (CCC), 2015 34th Chinese (pp. 9072-9077). IEEE.

Williams, S., Fleming, S., Lundqvist, K., & Parslow, P. (2013). This is me: Digital identity and reputation on the internet. In Digital identity and social media (pp. 104-117). IGI Global.

Zaidi, K., Rahulamathavan, Y., & Rajarajan, M. (2013, December). DIVA-Digital Identity in VANETs: A multi-authority framework for VANETs. In Networks (ICON), 2013 19th IEEE International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Zeng, Y., Pathak, P. H., & Mohapatra, P. (2016, April). WiWho: wifi-based person identification in smart spaces. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (p. 4). IEEE Press.