Abstract
This chapter examines how the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a huge impact on smart cities by transforming urban governance, decision making, security, and public services. However, the continuous collection of citizen data raises essential ethical concerns, regarding the user and data privacy, user consent, data bias, and civilian surveillance aspects. This chapter attempts to explore the ethical challenges of AI adoption in smart cities and user experience, elaborating how governments handle user sensitive data while ensuring compliance with regulatory frameworks including EU AI Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) while approaching the role of AI transparency, citizen evolvement, public trust in AI decision-making processes and trustworthiness. Furthermore, the chapter highlights ethical considerations, regulatory frameworks and AI initiatives which balance technological innovation with human rights, emphasizing transparency, accountability, and the importance of keeping smart cities human centric. To conclude, the chapter recommends policymakers and engineers with some of the best practices for responsible and transparent AI governance in smart cities.
Keywords: Computer Ethics; Digital Ethics; Ethics of Technology; Information Ethics; Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence; Artificial Intelligence
Gkikas, D.C., Gkikas, M.C. (2026). AI in Citizen-Centric Smart Cities: Exploring Data Privacy, Algorithmic Transparency and Trustworthiness Through Regulation. In: Tsihrintzis, G.A., Virvou, M., Marinakis, V., Jain, L.C. (eds) Human-Smart City Interactions and User-Citizen Experiences. Learning and Analytics in Intelligent Systems, vol 58. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-06364-9_5