Internet of things – dangerous or wondrous?

There is more and more talk about the internet of things, the Internet of Things and IOT, and it covers this together to a large extent, namely the fact that the future offers an existence in which everyday electronic devices are much more intelligent and will react to the outside world.

An interactive home that even keeps an eye on the milk in the fridge, which starts the dishwasher according to your calendar, which closes the radiators when you are at work and which starts the coffee machine immediately you wake up. IOT or the internet of things will bring many amazing things with it, and will greatly make the future move in.

Many remember the interactive home that Tom Cruise had in the movie Minority Report, and many of the elements that were in his home are actually already on their way to us. Samsung is one of the technology companies that is really far from the intelligent home, and with their intelligent refrigerator, they have created a center in the home with calendar, Media Center, to-do lists, email, video calls and much more. All collected in a refrigerator, which knows a lot about the users.

It becomes liberating when your appliances communicate with both you and the outside world. From your Kitchenaid to your dryer-it will all gather data and suggest improvements and make choices based on that. But there are reservations to be made.

Who’s watching your data?

However, the fact that all devices collect data does not only arouse jubilation, because against the background of previous scandals and hacker attacks, individual people rightly question the splendor of IOT and the large data stream.

Previous cases, of Smart TVs whose cameras were used for espionage, of surveillance cameras which were pivotal to the outside world, and of audio systems that external people listened to, have caused a furore among technology enthusiasts and civil rights fighters.

Most recently, it has emerged that manufacturers of robotic vacuum cleaners stored data on the interior design of homes by users, and immediately platted how valuable this would be, for example, Amazon, which could offer products on the basis of the interior design of the home. At the same time, a long, important question was then raised; how could this data be used with bad intentions and how to secure it.

New requirements for everything around us

If everything around us becomes intelligent, then it also requires making demands on all these devices. Because right now, many of these are so expensive that only few can afford them, but when the trend grows, you will see a manufacturers race to the bottom in terms of both price and unfortunately probably also safety. It will put the regulatory link and Data Protection Authority in the face of completely new problems, and it will require that you as a consumer be educated in what data considerations to take and which danger groups are lurking on the horizon.

For the future may be exciting, but we should not rush to it so much that we forget to get there in a proper way.