What is the Internet of Things (IoT)?

Discuss about the Internet of Things and Privacy for Horizontal Integration.
 

The Internet of Things or the IoT is a collection of devices or objects that are interconnected with the help of the internet. The devices that are being used in IoT could be anything; from a device that monitors the heart rate of an individual to a common electronic gadget at your home. Each of the objects that are connected to the network of an IoT platform has an IP address and has the capability to collect data and information without any manual intervention (Happiestminds, 2018). There is an underlying embedded technology in these IoT devices that help them to make logical decisions. The major application of IoT is that it could be used to inspect, analyze and comprehend a situation without using any assistance from humans.

One of the major specialties of IoT is that it could be used to connect devices that are on different platforms (McClelland 2017). The advantage of using such a technology to connect devices is that it gives a unique identity to the devices to be controlled digitally. The interconnectivity of these devices helps in capturing data from more sources for improved security. One of the major consumers of IoT is large business organizations that use the IoT technology to make better decisions in their everyday transactions, with the help of transactional data. With the effective use of IoT platforms, business concerns would be able to reduce their expenditure by enabling more comprehensive asset utilization. One of the particular features of IoT is that the devices connected through IoT could be tracked better with the help of sensors (Norton 2018)). These devices are then used to make better decisions by using data and analytics. With the simultaneous expansion of data and devices, interconnectivity of devices is becoming more significant. This capability of interconnecting devices could be used to create a better business process that is more intelligent. 

Though IoT has so many advantages, there have been growing discussions about the way these devices pry into our homes and personal space (He et.al, 2014). Devices that we use in our everyday lives like smartphones contain a lot of private data like the location where we live. Personal information like phone contacts and photos are also at risk in smart devices. Each photo or page that is being shared, commented or liked in apps like Facebook is being monitored for future use (Press 2017). There have also been unconfirmed reports that the microphone remains on while scrolling pages, and listens to each conversation that is being made by an user, once the app is active on your smartphone.

Advantages of IoT

One of the major causes of concern for IoT as a technology is that most of the devices connected to an IoT platform could be tracked by attackers. Connecting smart devices like medical equipment could be thus considered as highly risky and prone to security breaches. As devices are interconnected in an IoT platform, if one of the connected devices are hacked, it could give a foothold for the attacker to do further attacks and breach the security (Patton et.al, 2014). One of the major uses of IoT devices is that they can have access to private data to monitor daily activities and have interactions with the outside world. The risks of these capabilities reaching the hands of attackers cannot be undermined, as it could result in catastrophic outcomes.

There is no limit to the number of devices that could be connected to an IoT platform. Each of the objects that are connected to the network has an IP address and has the capability to collect data and information without any manual intervention. There is an underlying embedded technology in these IoT devices that help them to make logical decisions. The major application of IoT is that it could be used to inspect, analyze and comprehend a situation without using any assistance from humans.  The IoT technology could be scaled up to any extent for connecting devices across any platforms (Akkaya et.al, 2015). One of the common features of IoT is that it gives a unique identity to each of the devices that are being interconnected, to be controlled digitally. The interconnectivity of these devices helps in capturing data from more sources for improved security. One of the major consumers of IoT is large business organizations. The big corporations could use IoT for making better decisions, with the help of the transactional data.

IoT provides seamless interconnectivity between different objects in our surroundings. The objects that we use in our every day lives in our homes, vehicles, and localities has the capability to change the digital surveillance world in the coming years (Ghajargar et.al, 2018). Technological innovations like the Apple’s Homekit makes it possible to connect everyday appliances to each other at our homes. Soon we may be able to see our home appliances and accessories communicating with each other seamlessly. This would result in a large volume of data being transferred continuously. The data would be of utmost importance, as they would be closely associated to our everyday lives.

Interconnectivity and Data Collection

The rate at which IoT has progressed over the years has been surprising. If IoT and its related technologies are not used with proper care, it may lead to serious issues like data breaches (Farooq et.al, 2015). In addition, big companies may use the data from IoT to practice corporate surveillance. The major concern about IoT is that the data that is generated is collected and stored, without the user being aware of it. Each and every electronic device that comes on the market, from smart watches to GPS enabled footwear are replacing the normal devices on the market. Most of the time consumers are not aware that the intelligent devices that they are purchasing also have the ability to constantly monitor them (Datta et.al, 2015).

A look into the applications that use IoT reveals that they collect important data and information which are considered private. The IoT devices are capable of measuring variables like the heart rates of an individual and communicate it to other devices. At present, most of the devices that use IoT have very limited memory and processing capacity (Goursaud and Gorce, 2015). But this does not limit them from spying on us. It could be said that every smart device that is connected to the internet is capable of spying on us and our private data. As a common example, we could consider privacy issues pertaining to websites tracking the browsing activities of every internet user and using the data at a later stage for advertisements (Vangelista et.al, 2015).

There have been instances where law enforcement has used these capabilities of technology to solve cases. Technologies like the Amazon Echo or Google Home keeps track of every conversation of a home after it is activated. This would naturally create the fear and apprehension that every movement or every word of an individual is being tracked by technologies like these. Devices like smart TVs also use metadata to track the viewing habits of a person. The data and the information that is collected could then be used to market products in the form of advertising.  

One of the biggest reasons for the surge in IoT is the realization that it could be used in our everyday lives. IoT could be an effective tool in helping people to carry out their daily routine activities. The scope of IoT in developing smart cities and smart homes has made it a topic of interest for researchers (Al-Fuqaha et.al, 2015). The effective use of IoT could be used by city authorities for solving a citizen’s everyday issues. IoT gives the authorities the capability to monitor the daily activities and how the city is evolving. The data that is being collected could thus be used to provide a better quality of life to the citizens. One of the major applications of IoT in terms of making cities technologically capable is its ability to use data and information to solve traffic issues. These capabilities also extend itself towards controlling different kinds of pollution. Monitoring of the everyday activities of the citizens would also help in reducing the rate of crimes in cities to a great degree as well. IoT could be used to interconnect government entities such as service departments, information systems, facilities like educational institutions and hospitals and law enforcement (Margelis et.al, 2015). An integrated environment across cities would help the officials to analyze the requirements of the citizens comprehensively and provide them with better solutions.

Security Concerns with IoT

One of the major predictions about IoT and its growth is pertaining to healthcare. It is predicted that IoT would transform the industry from being reactive to predictive. Devices would be used to monitor each and every difference in a patients body, enabling better treatment procedures and alternatives.  With the rapid progress in technology, it could be fair to predict that IoT would be making great strides in terms of interrelated device communication. There would be a great difference in the way humans and computers interact with each other in the future. IoT would be distributed over a multitude of devices and would be integrated to cloud services. The scope of Artificial Intelligence to explore the data that comes from the IoT devices would be explored more in the coming years (Arasteh et.al, 2016). Similarly, the usage of IoT devices in the fields of advertising would be more optimized and used for effective marketing strategies.

Two of the biggest consumers of IoT in the next ten years would be businesses and governments. Current IoT technologies could be upgraded by decreasing the operating costs and increasing productivity. Governments could make use of IoT technology to improve the quality of life of its citizens. The main areas that would be concentrating on IoT would be artificial intelligence and machine learning. The use of Artificial Intelligence along with the capabilities of IoT would enable machines to be better than humans in different areas. These intelligent machines could be used to accomplish complicated things in different domains. These machines could be then used to improve business processes and optimize them subsequently.

Similarly, the data could be used for analysis and improve existing business procedures. This would advance intelligence devices even further and aid in having better interaction with the environment. The combination of IoT, Big Data, and Machine Learning would be the next decisive step towards technologic advancement in the coming years. The concept of IoT would be tried to be integrated into different areas. Currently, the application of IoT has been mainly into data analytics. Integrating the concept of IoT into cloud computing would enable in attaining optimized throughput. In the future, IoT could no longer be constrained as a collection of devices working in a limited number of devices or domains. Researchers predict that humans would become one part of a large central entity that would control all networked sub-entities that become part of a complex IoT design. This would give the network the capability to be more coherent and use reasoning in a better way to come up with intelligent decisions.

IoT in Smart Cities and Healthcare

References

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