Smart cities are no longer pilot projects. They are operational realities.
Across India and globally, cities are deploying connected infrastructure at scale; smart meters, surveillance systems, digital citizen services, intelligent transport, and sensor-driven utilities. The promise is efficiency, sustainability, and better quality of life.
Yet beneath this progress lies a growing, unresolved challenge:
Who governs identity in a city where everything is connected?
From a CXO and policy leadership perspective, this question is no longer theoretical. It is becoming one of the most important risk decisions in urban transformation.
The Real Problem Smart Cities Are Quietly Accumulating
Smart cities rely on three types of identities operating simultaneously:
- citizens accessing digital services
- employees and contractors managing infrastructure
- machines and systems acting autonomously
In most smart city programs today:
- identities are created faster than they are governed
- access is granted broadly to avoid delays
- machine identities outnumber human identities
- ownership of access decisions is fragmented
The result is a trust gap; not always visible, but increasingly dangerous.
When identity governance is weak, cities face:
- misuse of privileged access
- unauthorised system changes
- data exposure across citizen platforms
- delayed response to incidents
- loss of public trust
These are not technology failures.
They are governance failures.
Why Traditional Security Models Don’t Fit Smart Cities
Conventional security approaches were designed for contained enterprises. Smart cities are anything but contained.
They are:
- multi-departmental
- vendor-driven
- politically accountable
- operational 24/7
- deeply human in impact
Firewalls and monitoring tools can detect activity.
They cannot answer critical questions like:
- Who approved this access?
- Why does it still exist?
- Should this system trust this identity right now?
Without strong identity governance, smart city security becomes reactive by design.
Identity Governance: The Missing Control Layer
Identity governance provides structure where complexity dominates.
At its core, it ensures:
- every identity has clear ownership
- access is aligned to role and purpose
- privileges expire when purpose ends
- actions are accountable and auditable
In a smart city context, this means:
- contractors lose access when projects end
- devices are governed like users, not exceptions
- employees access only what their role requires
- citizen data is protected by design
This is not about slowing innovation.
It is about making innovation safe to scale.
Real-World Insight: Where Cities Struggle Most
Across ongoing smart city initiatives, the same pain points surface:
- Too many vendors, each managing access differently
- No unified view of who can access what
- Manual approvals are creating delays and risk
- Legacy systems integrated without identity controls
- Compliance pressure without operational clarity
When something goes wrong, accountability becomes unclear; and remediation slow.
What Problem-Solving Identity Governance Looks Like
From a practical standpoint, effective smart city identity governance focuses on:
- Unified identity oversight across departments and vendors
- Time-bound access for projects, contracts, and systems
- Clear ownership for every privileged access decision
- Audit-ready visibility without constant manual effort
- Scalable controls that work for people and machines
These are not theoretical ideals. They are operational necessities.
Why This Is a Leadership Decision, Not an IT One
Identity governance in smart cities intersects with:
- citizen trust
- regulatory scrutiny
- political accountability
- operational continuity
- public safety
Delegating it purely to technology teams creates blind spots.
When CXOs and city leaders own identity governance:
- decision-making becomes clearer
- risk is reduced before incidents occur
- public confidence increases
- smart city investments deliver lasting value
An Optimistic Way Forward
The encouraging reality is this:
Smart cities do not need to pause innovation to fix identity governance.
They need to design it intentionally. Small, focused steps; clear identity ownership, access expiry, and unified governance; create outsized impact when applied consistently.
Identity-first design allows cities to:
- scale faster with confidence
- respond to incidents decisively
- protect citizens without over-monitoring
- demonstrate responsible digital leadership
Closing Perspective
Smart cities succeed when trust scales alongside technology.
Identity governance is not an obstacle to progress.
It is the foundation that makes progress defensible, sustainable, and worthy of public trust.
The cities that solve identity governance early will not just be smarter.
They will be safer, more resilient, and more trusted. That is the future of truly smart cities.
