City of the Big Brother

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

-- Carl Sandburg, Chicago

That was then, this is now. If a farm boy is hanging out near the streetlamps these days, someone other than Carl Sandburg will know:

The curled metal fixtures set to go up on a handful of Michigan Avenue light poles later this summer may look like delicate pieces of sculpture, but researchers say they'll provide a big step forward in the way Chicago understands itself by observing the city's people and surroundings.

The smooth, perforated sheaths of metal are decorative, but their job is to protect and conceal a system of data-collection sensors that will measure air quality, light intensity, sound volume, heat, precipitation and wind. The sensors will also count people by measuring wireless signals on mobile devices.

Great. The folks collecting the information say it will be used for good, not evil, of course:

City officials don't have firm expectations about what the data may yield but share researchers' desire to push "Chicago as a test bed of urban analytical research," said Brenna Berman, the city's commissioner of information and technology. "Part of why this is so exciting is a lot of the analytics we do is targeted to a specific problem, and this is more general."

Berman said the investment from the city will be minimal: Between $215 and $425 in city electrician wages to install each box and then an estimated $15 a year for electricity to power each box.

Berman's office had a say in picking the initial sensor lineup, and she said the list was limited to "nonpersonal" data because the city is still working on a privacy and security policy to govern the protection and confidentiality of any data that the system may collect in the future. Berman expects she and Emanuel will agree on a final version of the document by the end of July.

"We've been extremely sensitive to the security and the privacy of residents' data," Berman said.

The city will have the last say on what kind of personal data is gathered by the system, "because they're installed on city property," Berman said.

"Nothing else can be deployed without the city's say-so," she said.

Nothing gets deployed in Chicago with the city's say-so.