West Sacramento has become the first U.S. town to pilot ZenCity, a program using data analytics to better help cities understand the needs of its citizens.
ZenCity pulls together opinions, feedback, and comments about things happening in cities by pulling comments from public social media accounts.
The city already has several outlets for public comment like city council meetings, writing letters, or online commenting.
West Sacramento Mayor Chris Cabaldon said only a small majority of citizens will actually go through the troubles, however, many more will make comments on social media.
“We believe citizens are at the heart of any city government,” the ZenCity website writes. “Whether you’re a parent, a business owner, a high school student, new to the neighborhood, or a veteran of the area, you have a voice that should be heard and taken into account when your city makes decisions.”
Amidst privacy concerns, the company says they anonymize all of the data it collects and only pulls from open outlets such as public pages and groups. The company whites out all names of posters and
ZenCity also looks at hashtags and resident Facebook groups, but does not track where people are posting from.anyone tagged in relevant posts.
Sacramento based cyber security expert Caleb Kwong or Savant Solutions, says there are potentials for abuse although he understands that the city has good intentions.
He suggests all social media users change their settings to private.
ZenCity is costing $12,000 for West Sacramento for the year.