Venture capitalist Roger McNamee, who was an early investor in Facebook and other technology giants, writes in a letter to Toronto city council ahead of a Thursday meeting that the project is a "dystopian vision that has no place in a democratic society."
McNamee, who has been a vocal critical of the tech industry in recent years over data and privacy concerns, says the smart city project is a highly evolved version of surveillance capitalism that gives too much power and control to the project's backer Alphabet Inc., parent company of Google.
The group says the structure of the deal is fatally flawed, and that it will be taking its campaign to city council when it hears an update on the project Thursday. Sidewalk Labs has said in the past that it hopes to set a new standard in responsible data use, and plans to have a independent trust manage the data generated by the smart city development.