Living in the Internet of Things

Posted by: raminta 9 years, 9 months ago

(0 comments)

Almost twenty five years ago the biggest American telecommunications company has foreseen that we will be using such technological innovations as e-books, GPS and iPads and that the wireless connection will allow us to communicate and to work out of the office. Now we use these innovations and we cannot imagine our life without them anymore.

Every day we use several computers, smartphones, iPads, smart music players and even a smart TV. All these devices have created the beginning of a new smart era, called the Internet of Things.

What kind of smart future waits for us?

It is obvious that possessing several smart devices will not satisfy our fastly changing needs, therefore soon we will have smart fridges at home, which would inform us about the products we have, the food we can prepare out of them and the best meal according to our diet. Depending on the weather conditions, our house will impose a certain temperature and the level of the light. Moreover, our house will identify us upon arrival and, according to our agenda on a smart phone and to the data about our blood pressure, it will decide if our day was tiring and will suggest how we should spend our evening. Our alarm clock will evaluate our agenda and the data about traffic jams and will autonomously decide when we should get up and leave home. In addition, while brushing our teeth we will be able to check weather forecasts or our agenda and to send messages all on the mirror.

Now we can easily imagine that the secret behind the operation of these devices will be the connection to the Internet and to our smartphone.

Such smart world seems really attractive and comfortable to live in, but it is highly important to keep in mind that thousands of sensors will be set everywhere and they will use particular algorithms not only for recording and processing our data, but also for the prediction of our needs and wills.

It is already clear that the Internet of Things will consist of wearables (e. g. smart watches and glasses), quantified self things (e. g. sleep trackers, activity counters, accelerometers, etc.), and domotic devices (e. g. smart light bulbs, thermostats, washing machines, ovens, etc.). Our smartphones will therefore have a prominent role in our identification. All these devices will be used for the surveillance of the environment one is living or working in or for the tracking of a consumer's habits, and the data will be deeply analysed making a direct impact on a consumer's life.

Is the Internet of Things safe?

In September 2014, the Working Party on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data (Article 29 Working Party) has published an opinion on the Recent Developments on the Internet of Things. According to the party, the biggest problem consumers will face, will be the loss of the possibility to control their own data. All devices in the Internet of Things will be obliged to “over-communicate” with each other while transferring data automatically. This will create more burden to consumers because it will become more difficult for them to control the flow of their own data.

Smart devices such as smart glasses or smart watches will collect and will save data about other persons whom the owner will meet on his/her way. It will be quite difficult to find out whether the watch a person is wearing is a smart watch or not, therefore it will become almost impossible to give our informed consent to collect and record any sounds, videos and other data about us.

Another important issue is the transfer of data to third parties. For instance, devices which collect and record data about our blood pressure or other health data will be very useful to us and to our doctors, but would you really like if insurance companies would get access to such data?

Other potential threats are related to the protection of smart devices from cyber-attacks, data thieves and the surveillance of national security authorities. Moreover, one should not expect that smart systems will work perfectly – in case of a sudden failure you may be “imprisoned” in your home or lose the possibility to use all domestic devices.

How personal data should be protected in the Internet of Things?

The controller of a smart system should inform the user about the kind of data that are being collected and processed and the way they are being used. After the delivery of such information the controller should receive a clear consent of the user. The controller should also ensure the absolute protection of the information from any kind of cyber-attacks and thieves and should never transfer such data to other companies, especially in the case of sensitive data such as health data, racial or ethnic origin, and etc.

Data recorded by smart devices should be kept in a system only for the necessary period of time. This means that such data must be deleted if one decides not to use a smart device any longer and that they cannot be recovered if one has removed them.

It is very important to know that several smart devices record and automatically publish some kind of personal data on social networks if settings are not imposed correctly. It should be obvious that settings of such devices should inform the users and give them the possibility to decide whether they want such information to be published on social networks or not.

All this means that we should be very careful if we want to use devices within the Internet of Things. We should keep in mind that such devices will record and will process a huge amount of our personal data; therefore, one should carefully check and decide if the producer of a smart device is reliable and if care is taken not only about the protection of personal data, but about the technological security of a device and the network as well.

This article has been prepared and published in cooperation with the Human Rights Monitoring Institute, a Lithuanian NGO defending human rights.

Image courtesy of Ian Fogg, Flickr.com

• ← Kol „Didysis brolis“ mus stebi, kas saugo mūsų duomenis?
• Visą pasaulį paveikęs masinis elektroninės komunikacijos sekimas →