Privacy-Preserving Technologies and Data Security in Smart Cities

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid advancement in smart city technologies, driven by the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and big data analytics, has transformed urban environments, enhancing efficiency, sustainability, and quality of life. However, these developments also present significant challenges related to privacy, data security, and public trust.

Smart city infrastructures rely on vast networks of IoT devices, sensors, and AI-powered systems that generate and process large volumes of sensitive data. Ensuring the security and privacy of this data is critical to protecting citizens from unauthorized access, misuse, and surveillance risks. Moreover, the complexity and opacity of these technologies can erode public trust, highlighting the need for transparent, secure, and privacy-preserving solutions.

This Special Issue aims to showcase the latest research and innovations in privacy-preserving and data security technologies tailored for smart city ecosystems. We invite contributions that address novel methodologies, frameworks, and best practices to enhance data protection, secure communication, and trust in smart city applications.

Topics of Interest

We welcome original research articles and review papers on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• Privacy-preserving data management and computation.
  • Differential privacy techniques for smart city data.
  • Homomorphic encryption and secure multiparty computation.
  • Federated learning and edge computing for privacy-aware analytics.
  • Blockchain-based data governance and access control.
• Secure and resilient smart city infrastructures.
  • Lightweight cryptographic protocols for resource-constrained IoT devices.
  • Secure communication and data transmission in smart city networks.
  • Anomaly detection and intrusion prevention systems for IoT ecosystems.
  • Software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization for security.
  • Zero-trust architectures and access control models for smart cities.
• Privacy-enhancing technologies for urban sensing and monitoring.
  • Privacy-preserving computer vision and video analytics.
  • Anonymization and de-identification techniques for urban data.
  • Spatial and temporal obfuscation methods for location privacy.
  • Citizen-centric privacy controls and data rights management.
  • Secure data-sharing models for inter-agency and public–private collaborations.
• Trust, transparency, and ethical considerations in smart cities.
  • Algorithmic fairness and explainability in AI-powered smart city systems.
  • Stakeholder engagement and public participation in smart city governance.
  • Ethical AI frameworks and responsible data usage policies.
  • Data provenance, auditing, and accountability in smart city ecosystems.
  • Trust models for human-AI interactions in urban environments.
• Emerging challenges and future directions.
  • Privacy and security implications of 5G, edge computing, and the metaverse.
  • Security challenges in digital twins and urban simulation models.
  • Interdisciplinary approaches to privacy, security, and trust in smart cities.
  • Regulatory frameworks and policy considerations for urban data protection.
  • Citizen-centric design and user-centered privacy mechanisms.
  • The role of quantum computing in future smart city security.

Dr. Yang Liu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Information is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• privacy-preserving computing
• smart cities
• secure IoT systems
• trust and transparency in AI
• federated learning
• blockchain