Community Brief: Perceptions of Data Privacy

By Dr. Gwen Shaffer, California State University Long Beach

“Smart” cities like Long Beach strive to improve quality of life through data-driven insights. Data makes it possible for the City of Long Beach to more efficiently deploy and operate city services—trash and recycling pick up, public safety initiatives, traffic management, and much more. One way we obtain these insights is by collecting data on residents as they move through routine daily tasks. Many activities are no longer private because of technologies that collect real-time data, such as smart water meters that track shower lengths, traffic cameras that capture images of vehicles at red lights, municipal WiFi hotspots that automatically connect to smartphones, and parking apps that know a use r’s geolocation and credit card information. Increasingly, however, residents question whether the benefits of smart city technologies outweigh the drawbacks associated with relinquishing privacy and risking data breaches. For example, about 70 percent of U.S. adults participating in a 2023 Pew Research Center study reported feeling very or somewhat concerned about how the government uses data collected about them, up from 64 percent in 2019.

These findings align with research conducted by the research team I co-lead with City of Long Beach Technology Partnerships Officer Ryan Kurtzman and Data Privacy Analyst Omar Moncayo. We held focus group discussions during 2021 with 82 Long Beach residents, who told us that excessive surveillance reinforces a sense of insecurity and leads residents to fear civil liberties violations. Members of Long Beach’s BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) communities said they are particularly wary of surveillance technologies used by law enforcement.

Our current research is a direct response to data privacy challenges posed by civic technologies in the public realm. Our team is designing and deploying a community-informed “Digital Rights Platform” that uses physical signage and an online portal to provide residents with a clear understanding of how local government applies predictive and diagnostic analytics to personal data. The platform advances two critical and closely intersecting priorities for the City: implementation of its Data Privacy Guidelines and its vision to use residents’ data in non-discriminatory ways. We tested the Digital Rights Platform with 77 residents who each participated in “data walks” and two focus group discussions—one discussion immediately prior to and the second immediately following each walk— between March 2 and March 9.

Long Beach’s Digital Rights Platform consists of privacy notices featuring text and open-source iconography to visually convey which City-deployed technologies collect personally identifiable information, how each device or software system collects those data, and the purpose of the data collection. Each notice includes a unique QR code that, when scanned, takes users to a page on the online platform specific to the technology encountered with additional information.

Figures 1, 2, and 3 - Privacy labels posted on civic technologies

To date, our research team has designed and mounted 22 privacy labels in three communities: Downtown, North Long Beach, and Cambodia Town. The signs are physically adjacent to civic technologies, e.g., security cameras, mobile payment kiosks, public WiFi routers.

Our research examines whether increased transparency and accountability enabled by the Digital Rights Platform contributes to fostering trust in local government. We also aim to understand which types of civic technologies should cities label, and what information should these labels feature—in order to have maximum impact. Below are some of the key findings from our March 2024 user testing events.

Figures 4 and 5 - Data privacy labels adjacent to a library self-check kiosk and a Passport Parking payment kiosk.

The Digital Rights Platform is Especially Important in the Wake of a Cyberattack

During our research, some study participants referenced a November 2023 cyberattack against the City of Long Beach, which forced the City to go offline for two weeks. “As embracing of technology as I am, I would never connect to public WiFi, especially after the City of Long Beach’s site was hacked,” a study participant said. Another volunteer said the cyberattack confirmed that the less data Long Beach collects and stores, the better “for the security of residents.” Comments like these underscore the need for City officials to communicate data usage and storage policies to residents. The Digital Rights Platform’s ability to engage and educate the public about a technology’s intended purpose, functions and benefits has the potential— both implicitly and explicitly—to foster trust in local government.

Smart City Technologies are Part of a Larger Surveillance Ecosystem

Residents talked about living in a ubiquitous surveillant culture, and they view City data collection as part of that reality. As one study participant commented, “When I step out into the street, I don’t distinguish between what is part of the city and what’s private. I think I’m just being watched or information is being collected.” Similar statements reflecting the viewpoint that surveillance is unavoidable include:

• “I feel like I’m so laissez faire about my data. I guess it’s because everybody is asking for it.”
• “I think all my information is out there already. I think it’s just a big, messy place and anything you do online will get leaked.”
• “I kind of work from the assumption that everything that is to be known about me is known already.”

The Digital Rights Platform can help residents distinguish the data collection and usage practices between civic technologies in the public realm and, for example, a Google assistant on their kitchen counter or streaming videos on Netflix. We believe critical differences do exist. Unlike Amazon, Meta and Apple, local governments are not market-driven. Rather, the City of Long Beach collects data for the purposes of streamlining city functions, improving services and reducing costs—as opposed to micro-target residents with advertising or sell personally identifiable information to data brokers.

The City’s Obligation to be Transparent

A prevailing sentiment emerging from our user testing events was that the City of Long Beach has a responsibility to be transparent about data it collects, the purpose of collecting data, and storage practices. We agree! One focus group participant said: “I think it’s really helpful for the City to provide that information and to make it accessible to people who want to follow up on it.” Another study participant asserted that the City of Long Beach “really needs to make an effort to educate people” and that informing residents about devices and platforms and why the City is deploying them “would help foster acceptance of technology.” Others went further, with one participant asserting that the City has a “legal responsibility” to let residents know when they are “being screened, recorded, or having their pictures taken.”

Privacy Trade-Offs

Study participants noted that they knowingly trading personal privacy in exchange for the benefits of paying utility bills online, reporting potholes through the GoLongBeach app, and checking the bus schedule on the Moovit app, among other routine tasks. Most study volunteers reported feeling ambivalent about these trade-offs. For example, a respondent who expressed alarm over automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in City-owned parking garages also conceded that the scanners speed up the process of exiting the parking structure. “I’m happy to give my personal information to the simplify parking process…it just makes life easier.” Similar sentiments included, “I’m ok sharing my information for the convenience of having WiFi,” and “If it helps the City operate more efficiently or ultimately keeps me safer, my neighbors safer, I’m okay with what feels like a pretty small loss.”

The Digital Rights Platform strives to demonstrate that an alternative to this “either/or” reality exists. Our model is meant to demonstrate that smart cities like Long Beach can efficiently provide services and innovate, while minimally infringing on privacy.

Discriminatory Impacts of City Data Collection

Study participants drew connections between civic technologies and harm to undocumented residents. One person said he is disturbed by the City of Long Beach’s use of ALPRs: “I think it’s a small convenience at the expense of potentially the police getting that data and using it to target undocumented folks—which there is a real history of happening.” Several study volunteers also suggested that digitized city services exclude non-English speakers, while others pointed out that older residents often have very little interaction with technology. “They will just walk past those QR codes and not even know what they are, right?” she asked.’

A critical goal for our research team is to align Long Beach’s data practices with the City’s Framework for Reconciliation. The document, adopted by City Council in June 2020, commits Long Beach to establishing “a framework to build community trust and redefine our relationship with law enforcement with transparency and reform,” and to move away from “policies and practices that result in or support inequitable circumstances affecting African-Americans and other communities of color.”

Impact of Data Privacy Labels and Online Portal

Study participants overwhelmingly supported the City’s efforts to provide transparency and accountability through signage and an online portal. Study volunteers generally reported that the privacy notices they encountered during data walks were well designed and informative. The most common criticisms mentioned difficulty understanding the meaning of icons and small font size on the physical labels. Cambodian residents also told us the data privacy labels printed in Khmer contained translation errors. Study participants’ feedback on the portal was universally positive; volunteers said the site was easy to navigate and that it provided comprehensive information regarding Long Beach’s data collection practices.

Despite this praise, our study volunteers made it clear that the Digital Rights Platform, in isolation, falls short of meaningful data privacy protections. Specifically, some residents voiced their desire for the ability to opt-out of data collection. “One thing that really struck me today is how many amazing city services I’m essentially locked out of if I choose to not sacrifice my privacy. When I go to the airport, I can opt out of facial recognition…Where’s my opt out from the City that gives me an equivalent or similar experience?” a volunteer commented.

Also, study participants suggested that physical privacy labels have limited utility. Comments included:

• “It would just be one more thing I’d really not pay attention to, just being honest.”
• “You’re already so bombarded with cookie permissions and all this other stuff…”
• “I’m not going to take the time to scan that QR code.”


Our research team is already using these findings to improve and scale the Digital Rights Platform. We hope you will visit the platform and let us know what you think!

You can access it here!