Thesis defence by Sofia Laborde

LATTS is pleased to announce that Sofia Laborde’s doctoral thesis defence will take place on Friday, 20 March 2026, at 2 p.m., in room B202 of the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (ENPC), on the Cité Descartes campus. Her thesis is entitled:

Privacy in the smart city: what is the problem? Privacy issues in the effective trajectory of a smart city: the case of Dijon.

This thesis in sociology was completed at LATTS, under the supervision of Alexandre Mathieu-Fritz and co-supervision of Sylvie Douzou (Senior Researcher at EDF R&D).

Composition of the jury:

• Corinne Delmas, University Professor, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS (Chair of the jury)
• Florence Millerand, Professor, University of Quebec in Montreal (Rapporteur)
• Gérald Gaglio, University Professor, Université Côte d’Azur (Rapporteur)
• Alexandre Mathieu-Fritz, University Professor, Gustave Eiffel University (Thesis Supervisor)
• Éric Dagiral, Senior Lecturer, Paris Cité University (Examiner)
• Antoine Courmont, Senior Lecturer, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS (Examiner)
• Cécile Caron, Research Engineer in Sociology, GRETS–SEQUOIA, EDF R&D (Guest Member)

Summary of the thesis:

The rise of smart cities reveals a fundamental tension between the promise of urban data integration and the requirements for data compartmentalisation, particularly when services rely on the use of personal information. Smart city policies promote the fluid and cross-cutting flow of data within integrated infrastructures, while a set of regulations—notably the French Data Protection Act (1978) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, 2018)—strictly govern the conditions for data collection, use and storage. This work shows that, beyond a simple opposition between technological imaginaries and legal norms, issues related to the production, circulation, use and protection of data that may affect individuals’ privacy directly contribute to shaping the technical architectures, modes of governance and methods of appropriation of smart city projects.

The core of this research is based on empirical data collected in Dijon (France) between January 2019 and February 2022, combining ethnographic observations in public spaces, participant observations in work meetings, individual and group interviews with project stakeholders, and a questionnaire on digital technology, smart cities and privacy. Based on this case study (Chapter 1), the thesis analyses how privacy is distributed, expressed and embodied in the different phases of design, deployment and maintenance of a smart city. From the point of view of operational stakeholders, it initially appears to be a non-issue (chapter 2): little discussed politically, presented as under control from the design stage, rarely raised by technical operators and largely absent from citizens’ concerns. This discretion leads us to question the conditions under which privacy issues remain invisible. The notion of “socio-technical ambiguity” is a central analytical tool here, mobilised across five entries: the stages of the project (chapter 3), thematic projects (chapter 4), actors (chapter 5), technical devices (chapter 6) and the data itself (chapter 7).

As far as residents are concerned (chapters 8 and 9), the smart city does not spark local public controversy, as it remains discreet, integrated into an already dense digital environment and barely noticeable in everyday life. Residents report a diffuse, localised and rarely politicised approach to these issues.

This work highlights that, in Dijon, privacy protection relies less on a unified framework than on the fragmented structure of the project’s activities themselves. We refer to this dynamic as the “paradox of fragmentation”: it constitutes both a limitation on the integration of urban data and an effective mechanism for protecting individuals. While this fragmentation restricts the expected performance of integrated infrastructures, it simultaneously helps to contain the circulation of personal data.

Part of the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), this research shows that privacy acts as a discreet but structuring operator, actively participating in shaping the technical architectures, organisational arrangements and forms of appropriation of smart cities.