Page 440 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

This applies to the network and server environments, as well as to the endpoints (i.e. the individual
terminals), in‐house or mobile. Cybersecurity includes software tools, processes and people as key
components of a successful implementation of the discipline.

c. Data protection
This notion refers to the tools and processes used to store data relevant to a certain ICT system or
environment, as well as recover lost data in case of an incident – be it fraudulent, accidental or
caused by a natural disaster.
One critical element about data is the concept of data ownership, which refers to who is in charge
of data, who can authorize or deny access to certain data, and is responsible for its accuracy and
integrity, in particular personally identifiable information (PII) . This aspect is expanded in the FG‐SSC
5
Technical Report on “Anonymization infrastructure and open data for smart sustainable cities” .
These definitions provide the basis for the analysis presented in subsequent sections of this
Technical Report. As the analysis will demonstrate, their consideration and effective integration as
part of SSC strategies is crucial to ensure the continuity of service provision in situations of shocks
or stress, but equally important, to ensure high standards of quality, trust and reliability on ICT
infrastructures and services, all required for SSC to succeed.

3 ICT implications in smart sustainable cities

The underlying nature of smart sustainable cities involves systems and objects interconnected
through various technologies.
The IoT is a key element of SSC developments and refers to devices with embedded technology (e.g.
sensors), and/or with Internet protocol (IP) addresses, able to be reached and exchange
information, for example, in an intelligent transportation system.
The amount of data generated by these technologies can reach a considerable size. Big data will
need to be appropriately and centrally stored, managed, analysed, and protected. The city
operation's center will supervise the interaction between systems and will have to ensure
continuity, integrity and resilience.

With time, the interconnected and interdependent services of smart cities will evolve under a
centralized governance dashboard of specialized stakeholders, responsible for setting policies and
processes, managing ICT assets, services and protocols, and ultimately administering the services
for constituents. ICT control and management capabilities will be crucial in order to guarantee an
efficient, secure and resilient governance and delivery.
Strategic information technology (IT) trends like virtualization, cloud and mobile, are cornerstones
of operational effectiveness and efficiency.

At the same time, business‐critical IT applications are increasingly running on virtualized servers,
while cloud services are expanding into core exploration and production processes.

5 FG‐SSC deliverable, Technical Report on anonymization infrastructure and open data for smart sustainable
cities. Available at http://www.itu.int/en/ITU‐T/focusgroups/ssc/Pages/default.aspx.

430 ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications