Internet of Things, for Things, and by Things

Abhik Chaudhuri

• Publisher: Auerbach Publications
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351779678
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencia de la computación
• Subtopic: Tecnología de la información

This book explains IoT technology, its potential applications, the security and privacy aspects, the key necessities like governance, risk management, regulatory compliance needs, the philosophical aspects of this technology that are necessary to support an ethical, safe and secure digitally enhanced environment in which people can live smarter. It describes the inherent technology of IoT, the architectural components and the philosophy behind this emerging technology. Then it shows the various potential applications of the Internet of Things that can bring benefits to the human society. Finally, it discusses various necessities to provide a secured and trustworthy IoT service.

Appendix 1The Proactive and Preventive Privacy (3P) Framework for IoT Privacy by Design

Abhik Chaudhuri and Dr. Ann Cavoukian

Idea in Brief

The Problem

The IoT is providing new services and insights by sensing contextual data, but there are growing concerns of privacy risks from users that need immediate attention.

The Reason

IoT devices and smart services can capture personally identifiable information (PII) without user knowledge or consent. IoT technology has not reached the desired level of maturity to standardize security and privacy requirements.

The Solution

IoT Privacy by Design is a user-centric approach for enabling privacy with security and safety as a ‘win-win’ positive outcome of IoT offerings, irrespective of business domain. The proactive and preventive privacy (3P) framework proposed in this paper should be adopted by the IoT stakeholders for building end user trust and confidence in IoT devices and smart services.

About This Content

The novel IoT privacy framework discussed here has been published as a paper in EDPACS Journal (Taylor and Francis, US) in February 2018.

Dr. Ann Cavoukian is best known for her creation of Privacy by Design—unanimously adopted as an international framework for privacy and data protection in 2010, now translated into 38 languages. Appointed as the information and privacy commissioner of Ontario, Canada in 1997, Dr. Cavoukian served for an unprecedented three terms as commissioner. As of July 1, 2014, she began a new position at Ryerson University as the executive director of the Privacy and Big Data Institute—Where Big Data meets Big Privacy.

Introduction

The global society is moving rapidly toward a ‘connected’ future. IoT devices and IoT-enabled smart services are gradually catching up in the societal-usage meter across the globe, with increases in smart devices and smart service offerings in various segments like wearable devices, connected homes, connected cars, connected healthcare, smart-city services and many other potential smart-service offerings. Various studies are predicting a multi-fold growth of IoT devices in billions across the globe over the next five years. However, privacy is a key concern for the smart services across verticals. To address privacy concerns, we need privacy enablers embedded in the design of IoT devices and smart services from the conceptual stage to make them reliable and trustworthy.

The principles of IoT Privacy by Design discussed in this paper are aimed at addressing privacy concerns of IoT devices and smart services. These principles are adaptive extensions of the foundation principles of Privacy by Design and are based on the stakeholder needs in IoT services, and considering the users and smart citizens as key stakeholders, the protection of their personally identifiable information (PII) is the primary focus.

IoT Privacy by Design extends the ‘trilogy’ of encompassing applications—IT systems, accountable business practices, physical design and networked infrastructure—with the fourth dimension of ‘sensors.’ Anyone using these adaptive principles of IoT Privacy by Design will need to address the requirements of the seven foundation principles as well, because the adaptive principles and foundation principles are complementary to each other.

The proactive and preventive privacy (3P) framework proposed in this paper can be adopted by the IoT stakeholders for building end user trust and confidence in IoT devices and smart services.

Ushering in the Era of Sensors

The IoT can provide a ubiquitously connected world and create huge oceans of data logged in a continuous mode based on a predefined and fine-tuned context. Sensors are playing a critical role in implementing the IoT. Sensors create the layer of perception by sensing contextual data as per defined parameters of the smart service from the environment where these are deployed. The rapidly evolving IoT technology is utilizing this additional dimension of sensors to capture data from contexts that were not previously possible on such a massive scale. The parameters that define the context can be changed by authorized command and control of the actuator. Depending on the smart-service design, a huge number of sensors might be deployed to gather contextual data. The sensors currently in use have limited computing power, making it difficult to render strong encryption during data communication from the sensors to the gateway. Sending back control data to the actuator in encrypted format is also not feasible for the same reason.

The data from the sensors are communicated through wired and wireless networks to be stored, processed and analyzed for providing the context-based smart services. While new business and service models are being designed in different domains using perceived data—which makes IoT technology fascinating—this is also bringing up concerns about user privacy. The common man might find it difficult to understand the architecture of these sensors and what data the IoT sensors are collecting about them, because the details of the captured data are either not shared fully by the device manufacturers and service providers or the users are unaware that they should have an operational know-how of the IoT device and smart service for their personal benefit.

The IoT Ecosystem

The IoT, being an emerging technology, has not yet reached a mature and stable level in the technology adoption life cycle. It is a complex ecosystem with multiple technologies and a large number of players across various layers. The IoT ecosystem comprises various device and sensor manufacturers, chipset vendors, platform vendors, cloud-infrastructure service providers, developer communities, system integrators, value-added service providers, research consortiums, standards bodies and regulatory authorities. These are early days for this emerging technology, but we are already seeing security and privacy concerns being raised for the various IoT products and services that are currently being offered. Ensuring security and privacy for IoT devices and smart services is a necessity that needs immediate attention to realize the IoT’s potential.

Privacy a Key Enabler for the IoT

As IoT-enabled smart services become popular, the gradual overlap of IoT devices and services with our dai...