The Canadian government is being sued over plans to build a Google "smart city" after civil rights activists claimed it would amount to an invasion of privacy.<\/p>\n
Sidewalk Labs, a unit of Google\u2019s parent company Alphabet, is proposing to turn a rundown part of Toronto’s waterfront into a high-tech community with a myriad of sensors embedded in its infrastructure.<\/p>\n
It plans to erect blocks of flats, offices, shops and a school on a 12-acre site, a first step toward what it hopes will eventually be an 800-acre development.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has now sued the Canadian government, and the local and provincial governments.<\/p>\n
Michael Bryant, the group’s executive director, said: "Scientists profit from your behavioural data. Canada, Toronto, you are the lab rats."<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Canada’s infrastructure minister said the development would be pursued in and "ethical and accountable" way.<\/p>\n
The project would allow Sidewalk Labs to wire up everything including \u00a0street lights and stretches of pavement.<\/p>\n
There would be heated roads to melt ice and snow on contact, and sensors that would monitor traffic and protect pedestrians.<\/p>\n
In Canada concerns about what would be done with the data of people living there have intensified following a series of privacy scandals at Google and Facebook.<\/p>\n