Rio: Smart City or Big Brother?

In the wake of 2016 Olympic Games and 2014 World Cup, Rio de Janeiro built two major data centers. The first is Centro Integrado de Comando e Controle (CICC) or Integrated Centers of Command and Control, and the second is Centro das Operacoes do Rio (COR) or Rio Operations Center. These facilities were built in partnership with IBM with the purpose of creating Rio as “smarter city” that could tackle problems of crime, congestion, and natural disasters. They also serve as command center during major exceptional events, such as the Olympic Games. CICC and COR gain their own commendation of World Smart City Award from the Smart City Expo World Congress in 2013.

This achievement reflected the flawless works of marketing department in the Rio Smart City project. However, this success does not reflect the fundamental principle and main purpose of how a smart city in reality is. Besides increasing the city’s quality of life, the basic assumption of smart city is that technological advancement (to some extent) will create an ease of access for citizens to participate in the municipal or state political discourse. CICC and COR were initially designed to pull public participation on these mega events. But so far, what Rio’s citizens could participate in was merely watching the progress on the construction of the Olympic village on their cellphones, despite the fact that the Olympic project would elementarily re-shape the city. Citizens’ engagement has yet to be promoted and pushed by the aspired-to-be smart city.

Other central issue that revolves around Rio Smart City initiative is the use of technology to control masses during “exceptional” events and to repel natural disasters. A contentious discovery was emphasized on the definition of natural disasters, particularly on pre-World cup event; flooding and protests. The former is a relatively difficult condition to cope with, but the latter definition might be contested, especially in political terms. It is arguable that protest is natural in definition, but in the context of Rio, it can be highly political. This definition to some extent might indicate the smart city technology is used to consolidate political power.

Remember the pop culture reference for tyranny and big brother from fictional novel 1984 by George Orwell? These narratives (to some extent) resemble how the big brother or dictator is using technological advancement to consolidate his power. It also resembles a picture of how the big brother depoliticizes its citizen from daily basis decision and discourse. Therefore, it is clear that one of the main challenges in smart city initiative in Rio is to prevent them from transforming into a big brother. Yes, the one that appeared in 1984 Orwell.   

Reference:

Fischer, B. (2011). A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Gaffney, C., & Robertson, C. (2016). Smarter than Smart: Rio de Janeiro’s Flawed Emergency as a Smart CIty. Journal of Urban Technology , 1-14.

Schreiner, C. (2016). Inernational Case Studies of Smart Cities: Rio de Janeiro Brazil. Inter America Development Bank.

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