IoT Privacy: Can We Regain Control?

Abstract

Privacy is part of the Internet of Things (IoT) discussion because of the increased potential for sensitive data collection. In the vision for IoT, sensors penetrate ubiquitously into our physical lives and are funneled into big data systems for analysis. IoT data allows new benefits to end users - but also allows new inferences that erode privacy. The usual privacy mechanisms employed by users no longer work in the context of IoT. Users can no longer turn off a service (e.g., GPS), nor can they even turn off a device and expect to be safe from tracking. IoT means the monitoring and data collection is continuing even in the physical world. On a computer, we have at least a semblance of control and can in principle determine what applications are running and what data they are collecting. For example, on a traditional computer, we do have malware defenses - even if imperfect. Such defenses are strikingly absent for IoT, and it is unclear how traditional defenses can be applied to IoT. The issue of control is the main privacy problem in the context of IoT. Users generally don't know about all the sensors in the environment (with the potential exception of sensors in the user's own home). Present-day examples are WiFi MAC trackers and Google Glass, of course, but systems in the future will become even less discernible. In one sense, this is a security problem - detecting malicious devices or "environmental malware." But it is also a privacy problem - many sensor devices in fact want to be transparent to users (for instance, by adopting a traditional notice-and-consent model), but are blocked by the lack of a natural communication channel to the user. Even assuming communication mechanisms, we have complex usability problems. For instance, we need to understand what sensors a person might be worried about and in what contexts. Audio capture at home is different from audio capture in a lecture hall. What processing is done on the sensor data may also be important. A camera capturing video for purposes of gesture recognition may be less worrisome than for purposes of facial recognition (and, of course, the user needs assurance on the proclaimed processing). Finally, given the large number of "things", the problem of notice fatigue must be dealt with, or notifications will become no more useful than browser security warnings. In this talk, we discuss all these problems in detail, together with potential solutions.