Earlier in January, thousands of attendees and exhibitors descended on Las Vegas for the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
One of the most exciting and talked about trends was the mass market arrival of the Internet of Things, something that I have been talking about since August 2013.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a catch-all term for the growing number of Internet enabled devices in our lives. If you wear an activity tracker, have a smart Nest thermostat, or remote access CCTV in your home, these are all part of the IoT.
What we saw at CES was a potential glimpse into the future. We saw smart dog bowls, smart baby monitors and even Belty, a smart belt.
Image courtesy of stuff.tv
Apart from excitement, all smart devices have something in common, they create data. They generate data that helps us as users to take more steps each day, brush our teeth for the required time, not forget to water our plants etc.
All this data is very useful but it is also very real privacy concern. In fact, shortly after CES, the chairwoman of Federal Trade Commission Edith Ramirez warned that privacy and security should be a key consideration as we add more devices to the Internet of Things.
She outlined three major concerns brought about by the IoT:
- ubiquitous data collection
- the potential for unexpected uses of consumer data that could have adverse consequences
- heightened security risks
I couldn’t agree more with Ramirez, as we have seen with voice recognition technologies, the connected world of the IoT has witnessed a land grab. Companies are developing smart devices as quickly as possible and putting them out into the market without proper consideration for what is safe or how data should be used responsibly.
The line between our connected lives and physical lives is more blurred with each passing year and we must change the way we view data and personal information.
I don’t believe that collecting data is a bad thing, in fact its data collection that allows many of the web’s most popular services to function at all. What I do insist on, however, is that data collection is transparent, easy to understand and most important of all, consensual.
People have come to learn that their data has value, and they should be the ones to decide who they share it with, and how it can be used.