effective enough. Indeed, the aim is to analyse by this date 120 terabytes a year, that is to say 35 million data collections every 10 minutes. Moreover, EDF intends to analyse also consumer’s tweets and comments44.
With such a quantity of data, information collected is more difficult to analyse for EDF, that is not a company specialized in data analysis. So EDF has decided to work with companies from the digital sector, such as Teradata45, whose business is based on data collection and analysis46.
And that is the point: the development of smart green policies has changed the ecosystem: in the informational society, local government does not work only with traditional companies from the environmental sector, as they used to do in the past. As ICTs facilitate the environmental effectiveness and efficiency, local governments also have to collaborate with new companies from the digital sector, such as IBM or Oracle, whose business is to analyze data. This evolution does not only change the ecosystem from the economic point of view. It also affects the relationship with customers as well as the one with local governments.
The more information a company will have, the more the enterprise has the possibility to know each detail of the customers’ private life. So, in smart green communities, customers have to face a fundamental choice. They have to know if they prefer to give up some personal privacy safeguards in order to benefit from better services or if they prefer to renounce to it in order to keep their whole right to privacy. About local government, the issue is to choose the right company when a public procurement is initiated because the winner of the tender will not anymore provide only electricity or water, it will also collect and manage personal data. It is therefore for the local government to choose a company that is respectful of the citizen’s fundamental rights. Being a smart green community is not only to ensure the efficiency of the environmental policy, it is also to guarantee its inhabitants’ right to privacy.
Notas
* Associate Professor (HDR) at the Sorbonne Law School (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). President of the Institut du Monde et du Développement pour la Bonne Gouvernance Publique (IMODEV).
1 A. Gurría, OECD Secretary-General, “New sources of growth in the 21st century. Fostering innovation and green growth” in OECD, Better policies for better lives. The OECD at 50 and beyond, 2011.
2 European Commission, Smart Sustainable Cities: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/cities/index_en.htm
See also European Commission, DG INFSO, Impacts of Information and Communication Technologies on Energy Efficiency, Final report, September 2008: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/docs/studies/2008/2008_impact-of-ict_on_ee.pdf
3 European Commission, Meeting of Advisory group ICT Infrastructure for energy-efficient buildings and neighbourhoods for carbon-neutral cities, Strategic priorities for the new framework programme for research and innovation covering the period 2014-2020, September 16, 2011: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/docs/smart-cities/smart-cities-adv-group_report.pdf
4 See S. Turner, Head of the Future Cities of Manchester City, ICT insights, No. 10, September 2014, p. 29.
5 D. He, President of Marketing and Solution Sales of Huawei, “The Innovation Gene for Smart Cities”, ICT insights, No. 10, September 2014, p. 1.
6 That is to say: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belfast, Birmingham, Bologna, Bristol, Eindhoven, Genoa, Ghent, The Hague, Helsinki, Linköping, Lisbon, Malaga, Malmo, Manchester, Murcia, Nantes Métropole, Nice Cote d’Azur, Nuremberg, Reykjavik, Rijeka, Tallinn, Stockholm, Venice, Vienna, Zagreb and Zaragoza. See http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/green_digital_charter/index_en.htm (accessed March 8, 2015).
7 See Commission of the European Communities, Commission recommendation of October 9, 2009, on mobilizing Information and Communications Technologies to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low-carbon economy, C(2009) 7604 final: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/docs/recommendation_d_vista.pdf (accessed March 8, 2015).
8 See the Green Digital Charter of 2009: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/docs/charter/green_d_charter.pdf (accessed March 8, 2015).
9 Ibidem.
10 See R. Krishnamurthy, Opening financial taps for more water: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/innovation_explanations/article/rajasekar_krishnamurthy.html (accessed March 8, 2015).
11 See National Academy of Sciences: http://www.drinking-water.org/flash/splash.html (accessed March 8, 2015).
12 That is to say, to drink, to cook or to be kept clean. See National Academy of Sciences, Why is safe water essential: http://www.drinking-water.org/html/en/Overview/Why-is-Safe-Water-Essential.html (accessed March 8, 2015).
13 See development below, IBM, Water Cost Index, Waterfund 2013, 2014: http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=5047 (accessed March 4, 2015).
14 Polluted water favors the occurrence of diarrheal diseases such as cholera that cause every year the death of 1.8 million people and the illness of tens of millions of others. See National Academy of Sciences, op. cit.
15 See EDF, Les inégalités de l’accès à l’énergie dans le monde, 30 avril 2013: https://www.lenergieenquestions.fr/les-inegalites-de-lacces-a-lenergie-dans-le-monde/
16 See International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook, 2014.
17 See EDF, Le poids de l’électricité dans les enjeux énergétiques globaux (infographie), April 17, 2013: https://www.lenergieenquestions.fr/le-poids-de-lelectricite-dans-les-enjeux-energetiques-globaux/
18 See IBM, Water Cost Index, Waterfund 2013, 2014: http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=5047 (accessed March 8, 2015).
19 See The World Bank, World Development Indicators: Electricity production, sources, and access, 2014: http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/3.7.
20 See EDF, Les inégalités de l’accès à l’énergie dans le monde, op. cit.
21 See EDF, La consommation d’électricité dans le monde, 12 décembre 2012: http://jeunes.edf.com/article/la-consommation-d-electricite-dans-le-monde, 273.
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