A Waterfront Toronto panel has big concerns with core but “frustratingly abstract” aspects of a controversial proposal for a high-tech neighbourhood on Toronto’s waterfront.

“Preliminary commentary” released Tuesday by the tri-government agency’s digital strategy advisory group — 15 Canadian and international experts — raises serious questions about the globally watched proposal from Sidewalk Labs, a Manhattan-based Google sister company.

The report could be another setback to efforts by Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs to formalize a final partnership to transform a 12-acre former industrial site at Queens Quay and Parliament St. — and potentially 190 acres of city-owned Port Lands — into a test bed for innovations to solve urban challenges on housing, transit and more.

Questions of ownership and protection of Torontonians’ data expected to be generated and stored by sensors throughout the area emerged as an early major concern after Sidewalk Labs in October 2017 won an international competition to potentially partner with the agency on the Quayside site.

Sidewalk Labs should be cut out of responsibility for crafting mechanisms to control data governance, with Waterfront Toronto and its government partners taking full control, the panel says. The firm should “focus on elaborating on how it will make its own proposals for data collection, processing and use more transparent, accountable and amenable to a robust privacy protection regime.”

In the commentary, Sidewalk Labs’ digital plan is called “frustratingly abstract.” Panellists felt some proposed innovations were irrelevant or unnecessary, and want to know what is a “minimum viable plan” — parts necessary for the project versus merely advantageous to Sidewalk Labs.

Sidewalk Labs’ proposal would benefit from a “discussion of the dependencies between digital solutions, scale, and any required legislative changes, and set out any interim solutions or approaches that will be considered to allow the project to proceed while those dependencies are resolved.”

In particular, panellists criticized the signature Urban Data Trust envisioned by the company as data guardian. “The (proposal) makes clear that the rules set out by the Urban Data Trust would apply to all data collectors in Quayside, including both public and private organizations,” the report states.

“However, it is not clear that the City of Toronto (or any other government actor) can legally surrender governance of data it collects to an Urban Data Trust, nor that it would be appropriate for an appointed body (such as a Trust) to have the authority to overrule the decisions of an elected body (such as the City).”

Panellists also raised questions about under what authority the Urban Data Trust would be able to require that users enter into contractual arrangements with the Trust in order to collect data in Quayside.

The digital strategy advisory group is expected to release a full report later, after receiving Sidewalk Labs’ response to the concerns. The company is expected to respond to some of the points at a public panel meeting on Thursday.

In a statement, Sidewalk Labs spokesperson Keerthana Rang told the Star her company has heard many of the concerns as the agency and company work together. Sidewalk Labs is producing a “digital innovation appendix” with a full list of technology to be deployed in Quayside.

Rang said the appendix, expected next month, will state how Sidewalk Labs would support Toronto’s technology ecosystem and research on governance. “We are confident the Digital Innovation Appendix will help respond to some of this feedback” from the panel, she wrote.

Last month, Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs agreed on an Oct. 31 deadline to address stumbling blocks en route to signing a final partnership agreement to proceed with Quayside as a living laboratory for the sustainable neighbourhood of the future.

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If agreement proves impossible on sticking points including a new waterfront transit line and the amount of land involved, Waterfront Toronto said in August its board would have to decide how to proceed. Sending Sidewalk Labs packing, and restarting a global search for a new waterfront development partner, is among the options.

If the partnership lasts past Halloween, they have a March 31 target for final agreement.

David Rider is the Star’s City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering city hall and municipal politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider

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