This project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Engagement Grants.
In a process of virtual centralization, it is imperative to identify the criteria for sharing information that ensure both the efficiency of a city’s operations and the protection of citizens and their privacy. It is essential to evaluate these criteria in light of the social, legal and ethical risks, while the technological issues appear to be secondary. Moreover, it is important to protect against internal and external threats in order to reduce or even eliminate the impact of these threats on citizens. Otherwise, the impact of these risks on our partner, the City of Sherbrooke, can affect its credibility, its reputation and its capacity for innovation.
This partner, which is the 20th largest metropolitan area in Canada, is an ideal location for the research project. In addition, it is of the highest priority for our partner, the City of Sherbrooke, to answer the following questions:
- How do we work with current systems and evolving citizen identity management systems while ensuring the privacy of citizens?
- What are the challenges of transforming existing systems in a unique digital identifier adoption strategy?
- What strategies should be adopted to properly classify information according to its level of sensitivity?
- What safeguards are needed to adequately protect against internal and external threats to identities?
- How to prepare the organization for the assured advent of self-sovereign digital identities in the next five years?