IoT Analysis

Internet of Things, or IoT, is such a strange term. It is not very descriptive in the title. It must have internet access and be a thing, but what does that even mean? The Internet of Things are devices that are relay information over a network or the internet to a system (Oracle, 2023). The system analyzes the data and can do many things with that information, such as adjust your thermostat or tell you that you are low on eggs. Chances are the average household in American already has multiple IoT devices in it. This sounds very useful but there are definitely a few ethical concerns with IoT devices. These concerns range from people’s personal privacy, data sharing, and data aggregation. With the growing popularity of IoT devices, making sure companies that produce IoT devices adhere to strict guidelines and policies can limit the amount of personal data being shared between companies.

What’s wrong with IoTs

IoT devices have a lot of great uses, such as smart lighting. Smart lighting allows you to go on vacation, and your lights turn on automatically to appear that you are present at your home. They will automatically turn off at a certain time of day. Smart locks on doors, smart watches, irrigation systems that automatically water your lawn and don’t water your lawn if it rains are other examples of IoT devices. These devices offer many convinces but they can also reveal a lot of personal data about a person. Much of this data people may think are not important information and take for granted. In the hands of a data scientist this information can be used to form a profile of you. With this profile companies can market products at you more efficiently and possibly even later deny as service to someone based on the data they have gathered. An example of this would be a smart watch gathering health data about a user and then insurance companies charging higher premiums to that user because they discovered a health issue that the user is unaware of. There have also been issues with some devices connecting to servers in other countries and sending data to servers that do not even belong to the company that made the item. Additionally, there have been issues with network security, allowing hackers to easily gain access to your device and altering its state. This can be a huge problem for people with security camera systems, typically used to determine if someone is trespassing, but now they are in the hands of a hacker able to spy on you in your own home.

Addressing Issues

One of the most common IoT devices is Amazon’s Alexa devices. This device listens for commands and then can control your other IoTs such as your smart lights or thermostat. Based on the functionality of this device it is always listening for your commands. This brings up a privacy issue as it can be eavesdropping on your conversations. In the case of Amazon’s Alexa, it is listening to you and saving your voice commands and sometimes other snippets that it hears (Fowler, 2019). Susan Hennessey mentions this same issue in "Implications for Surveillance in the Article 'Alternative Perspectives on the Internet of Things'". The government should step in and provide some policing in the form of policies.

Policies need to be in place to enforce stricter rules on the abilities of these devices. Companies also should be forced to provide full details of what kind of data they are storing and recording from these devices. The option to opt out of data collection should also be available to the consumers. Additionally, companies should provide details about network traffic through their devices. Knowing what connections these devices make allow consumers to see if a third party is accessing their device and or their data. Ultimately companies need to ensure that their devices are not easily hacked but that will never be 100% possible. Companies that violate these policies should be fined or their products pulled from the market.

Perhaps a website connected to a database of IoT devices makes and models that tells consumers of any ethical issues, such as personal data collection, network traffic and other pertinent information that could help customers make smart buying choices should be created. There may be some issue of company sponsorship that could make such a thing only possible through a government agency or a nonprofit organization. Ideally something like this could be voted on by users and added to almost kind of like a Wikipedia page. This would allow for the most up to date information. Devices that break policy could also be listed and mentioned on the website to try to help the government policy companies breaking policy.

Conclusion

While IoT devices provide many great features and benefits. Many users are often not aware of the privacy issues and the possibilities of being hacked that come along with these devices. The government should step in to create policies that allow users to opt out of data collection. Companies should transparently disclose what data they store and where they store it. A website dedicated to recording devices and companies that break policies would be helpful to consumers as well as the government in policing policy violations. Violations should include fines and/or having sales stopped. With policies like this, the power is moved back into the hands of the consumers and away from the companies.