City of Salisbury: Smart City or Open Prison?
- By Lachlan Colquhoun
- May 01, 2023
The City of Salisbury is a local government authority in South Australia known for its progressive and forward-looking approach to everything from grey water treatment to community engagement.
The organization provides services to an outer metropolitan region of Adelaide, which is home to 140,000 people and has recently made some significant investments in a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system along with some smart city initiatives.
The story about Salisbury is in two parts. One is how the organization uses its new ERP to automate and optimize its systems and deliver better services more efficiently.
It recently implemented a ReadyTech Altus solution, delivered by IT Vision, after seeking expressions of interest in 2022 for a new ERP system to help automate and streamline core operating functions.
The goal is to deliver services to a higher standard and to do so more efficiently, getting better value for money from the rates paid by Salisbury residents.
This should be a win for all stakeholders — the Salisbury organization, ratepayers and the vendor as it embarks on what it hailed as “one of the most comprehensive, complex and exciting programs that we have delivered to date.”
Down the Rabbit Hole
The second part of the story is not so positive. It is an example of how digitization initiatives are often misconstrued and opposed by groups who fall down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.
As part of Salisbury’s smart city program, there are plans for more CCTV cameras designed to detect the movements of cars and pedestrians better to understand parking patterns and needs for other services, protect residents, and identify offenders.
While Salisbury says the CCTV system will not use facial recognition technology, these assurances have not been enough to persuade a group of protesters calling themselves the No Smart Cities Action Group.
“As Government organizations embrace and implement digitization, many are also facing pushback from suspicious and paranoid members of the public”
Around 100 of these people demonstrated outside a council meeting in late January as the council voted, in favor, of the CCTV initiatives. It was their second demonstration after successfully forcing an earlier council meeting to be postponed.
The demonstrators claimed the council plan would lead to “Orwellian” facial recognition technology being used and that Salisbury would become an “open air prison” without privacy.
In addition to demonstrating outside the council meeting, the group distributed pamphlets throughout the Salisbury area complaining about the plan and spreading misinformation.
Salisbury mayor Gillian Aldridge is exasperated, saying CCTV cameras have been operating in the area “for ages” without incident or complaint.
“It’s things like finding the hoon drivers,” said Aldrige.
“People have asked us, could we please have cameras? It’s about the illegal dumping of rubbish. It’s about bins that tell you when they are full. It’s about looking after the community as best we can.”
One of the demonstrators, Alvin Warren, said he was concerned at the “data records of this stuff.”
“Where is it going to be stored?” he said.
“Is it going to be onshore, is it going to be offshore? Who’s going to get access to this stuff?”
Suspicion and Paranoia
The Salisbury example is a microcosm of something happening right across the world and may have been exacerbated by some of the paranoia during the pandemic lockdowns.
As Government organizations embrace and implement digitization, many are also facing pushback from suspicious and paranoid members of the public, who are, ironically, the stakeholders the services are for.
It speaks to a broader issue: the failure to communicate the benefits of technology to the public, many of whom are scared and fearful about the changes technology will bring.
Smart Cities, for example, are not universally perceived to be positive initiatives. Suspicious and, yes — misinformed — members of the public see them as being about surveillance, control and ultimately, intrusions on freedom.
In a country such as Australia, these initiatives are about efficiency, value for money and better and more sustainable services, but clearly, this message is not getting through to everyone.
Salisbury’s ERP vendor ReadyTech is rightfully proud of working with the council and supporting the “business transformation journey, and we share their commitment to delivering an exceptional community experience.”
While it is disappointing that not everyone in the community shares that view, it does lay down a challenge to technology leaders and organizations using technology to transform.
They might not bring everyone along, but clearly, a greater effort must be made to communicate technology’s benefits to minimize the number of people falling down the rabbit hole.
Lachlan Colquhoun is the Australia and New Zealand correspondent for CDOTrends and the NextGenConnectivity editor. He remains fascinated with how businesses reinvent themselves through digital technology to solve existing issues and change their entire business models. You can reach him at [email protected].