Connected Community / Smart City TO

A smart city improves access to the information and data a city needs to help it become an economically, socially and environmentally-connected community. Our goal is to ensure that people are easily connected and included in our digital city. This could mean finding new ways for residents and businesses to improve navigating Toronto or accessing City services or even engaging with their local government.

Here are some examples of how we’re using technology and data to improve connection and convenience:

  • Better transit experience: Improving transit reliability, speed and capacity by trying out new ideas, like the King Street Pilot
  • Adjusting traffic signals to respond to real-time traffic patterns, like the Smart Traffic Signals
  • Understanding your water use by day, week, month or year, through the MyWater Toronto app
  • Search inspection results for more than 15,000 restaurants on the DineSafe map
  • Using open data to help solve civic issues on Open Data

Cities for Digital Rights

In June 2019, City Council directed City staff to sign on to the Declaration of Cities Coalition for Digital Rights. In October 2019, the City of Toronto joined over 25 cities around the world to sign the Declaration to further ensure equitable and safe access to digital technology in Toronto. This international declaration commits cities to protect and uphold human rights on the internet at the local and global levels.

Public consultation: Digital Technologies and your City

Digital technologies are bringing Toronto new benefits, challenges and ways of working. To help guide future decisions on how our city should regulate these technologies and data use, the City of Toronto is developing a Digital Infrastructure Plan.

The public consultation period for 2019, which included an online consultation questionnaire and public events on December 7, 9 and 12, is now closed. The City held this consultation for participants to learn more about digital technologies, their role in City services, and provide input on the principles and policies that will form the Digital Infrastructure Plan. For more information, please watch the livestreamed video and download and read our Discussion Guide, the presentation and Discussion Boards from the public meetings.

A Community Advisory Group (CAG) will be established in 2020 to provide input on the design of additional consultations and implementation, as well as on the project content itself. The CAG application period closed on December 20, 2019. The project team will be in touch with applicants in early 2020.

These public consultations will help inform the City as it fulfils the direction received from Toronto City Council in February 2019 to develop a policy framework and governance model associated with digital infrastructure, and a work plan for implementation. It also fulfils direction received in June 2019 to evaluate policies on ethical digital standards and create a code of technological practices.

The Digital Infrastructure Plan will be developed through further consultations and opportunities for public participation in 2020. To sign up to be notified about upcoming consultations, and for more information about the City’s work on smart cities, subscribe below.

Subscribe for Digital Infrastructure Plan

Type (don’t copy and paste) your email into the box below, check the box next to the e-update description and then click “Subscribe”. You will receive an email with instructions to confirm your request.


Subscribe to receive updates and information about digital governance, privacy and data stewardship in Toronto. You can unsubscribe at any time.
The personal information on this form is collected under the authority of the City of Toronto Act, 2006. The information is used to allow the City to send you an email to confirm your wish to subscribe to a City of Toronto e-notice. Questions about this collection may be directed to the ListServ Administrator, Strategic Communications Division, City of Toronto, Toronto City Hall, 7th floor, West Tower, Toronto M5H 2N2. Telephone: 416-397-5318. By subscribing to one of the City of Toronto’s e-updates you are providing express consent, as defined by the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), to receive email updates from the City of Toronto.