User-centric Privacy Engineering for the Internet of Things

Abstract

User privacy concerns are widely regarded as a key obstacle to the success of modern smart cyberphysical systems. This article analyzes, through an example, some of the requirements that future data collection architectures of these systems should implement to provide effective privacy protection for users. Then, the article gives an example of how these requirements can be implemented in a smarthome scenario. An example architecture allows the user to balance the privacy risks with the potential benefits and make a practical decision determining the extent of the sharing. On the basis of this example architecture, the authors identify a number of challenges that must be addressed by future data-processing systems in order to achieve effective privacy management for smart cyber-physical systems.