A Smarter City

With fast-paced technological developments, cities around the globe are progressing to what are popularly known as “smart cities,” which make use of technology to provide better services to their residents. Singapore is a smart city known for its autonomous systems on security and maintenance, its forthcoming driverless taxis, and soon enough, it’s going to get even more complex.

Through the development of the country’s Smart Nation program, an unstated number of sensors and cameras will be spread across the city, allowing the government to monitor possibly everything—an Orwellian nightmare in the making if ever there was one.

Think of it as though it’s an upgraded version of Google Maps, collecting and providing more specific information on traffic, crowd movement, the weather, and even cleanliness.

As such, the gathered data will be uploaded into an online platform, Virtual Singapore, which the government expects will give them a new view of how the country functions in real time.

The Smart Nation program was initiated by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in late 2014 with the goal of solving problems within the country by harnessing Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and the innovative ideas of Singapore’s people.

Still Unclear

Currently, the program has already developed an infrastructure that shows live CCTV footage, monitors flooding levels, and even checks for open slots in parking spaces. All of which have been uploaded to an online map of Singapore.

However, officials assert that this next course for Singapore still has unclear potential applications that might only crop up when the system is already implemented.

Due to the nature of the technology, issues on privacy and security are concerns yet to be addressed, but the government assures its citizens that the data collected will be anonymized to the greatest extent possible.

(Which is probably exactly what Big Brother said to the hapless citizens of Oceania.)

Furthermore, the government stated that they will only deploy sensors in a specific area when these actually provide particular benefits to citizens residing within the area.

Smart Nation is open to innovations from the private sector, and actually have voluntary services designed to monitor the elderly already in place. Singapore is also planning on exporting their smart city technology to other countries.

“We are the dead,” said Winston…