Personal privacy VS. public safety: A hybrid model of the use of smart city solutions in fighting the COVID‐19 pandemic in Moscow
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Author | Sergey A. Revyakin |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1997 |
Received: 28 January 2021
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Revised: 15 September 2022
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Accepted: 13 October 2022
DOI: 10.1002/pad.1997
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Personal privacy VS. public safety: A hybrid model of the use
of smart city solutions in fighting the COVID‐19 pandemic in
Moscow
Sergey A. Revyakin
HSE University, Moscow, Russia
Correspondence
Sergey A. Revyakin, HSE University, 20
Myasnitskaya str., Moscow 101000, Russia.
Email: srevyakin@hse.ru;3029543@mail.ru
Funding information
National Research University Higher School of
Economics
Abstract
Technological advancements and big data have brought many improvements to
smart city infrastructure. During the COVID‐19 outbreak, smart city technologies
were considered one of the most effective means of fighting the pandemic. The use
of technology, however, implies collecting, processing personal data, and making the
collected data publicly available which may violate privacy. While some countries
were able to freely use these technologies to fight the pandemic, many others were
restricted by their privacy protection legislation. The literature suggests looking for
an approach that will allow the effective use of smart city technologies during the
pandemic, while complying with strict privacy protection legislation. This article
explores the approach applied in Moscow, Russia, and demonstrates the existence
of a hybrid model that might be considered a suitable tradeoff between personal
privacy and public health. This study contributes to the literature on the role of
smart city technologies during pandemics and other emergencies.
KEYWORDS
COVID‐19, emergencies, Moscow, privacy, public health, smart cities
1
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INTRODUCTION
Along with effective urban management, smart city technologies are
useful for effective emergency management (Ekman, 2019; Liu &
Li, 2020). The COVID‐19 outbreak and the associated government
restrictions triggered a significant increase in the use of smart city
technologies to fight the pandemic (Inn, 2020; Markotkin, 2021).
According to the literature (Inn, 2020; WHO, 2019), smart city
technologies can be useful in identifying, tracking, and forecasting
outbreaks through big data analytics, enhancing public security via
improved facial recognition and infrared technologies, delivering
supplies, and assisting surveillance. The investment in smart city
technologies improved the quality of planning, preparation, and
forecasting during the pandemic (Sharifi et al., 2021).
The benefits of using smart city technologies are evident, how-
ever, the municipalities of many countries can not use such tech-
nologies to the fullest to fight the pandemic because they raise
concerns about the “erosion of privacy” and could violate privacy
protection regulations (Kummitha, 2020). That is why such countries
have to apply the restrictions on using these technologies, applying
“a human‐driven” approach (Kummitha, 2020; Kupferschmidt &
Cohen, 2020). Some other countries were able to immediately and
forcefully activate the full capacity of smart city technologies to
keep the pandemic under control by applying “the techno‐driven”
approach. The literature describes the pros and cons of these ap-
proaches when using smart city technologies during pandemics but
advises looking for a tradeoff between personal privacy and public
safety (Kitchin, 2020). The article demonstrates one of those trade-
offs represented by a hybrid approach applied in Moscow. Based on
the above and considering that Moscow has the most advanced
smart city technologies in Russia and strict privacy regulations at the
same time, the article answers the following research question:
How did Moscow use its smart city technologies to fight against
COVID‐19?
Public Admin Dev. 2022;42:281–292.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pad© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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