Businesses need to take a more ethical and proactive stance toward the issues
in the absence of government leadership on the issue. This is especially true of
the so-called Internet of things that will express itself in all manner of smart
technology solutions such as smart building control and energy systems, smart
transportation options and the smart grid. "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />


Increasingly, privacy is about control. About how you control data about you
and your habits, and about how businesses control that
information.


Some suggest that Generation Y actually more closely manages their
information than many people think. Young people want to share more, but they
are taking extraordinary measures to control how it is shared. Most people are
actually more concerned with identify theft and hacking of
computers.


It isn’t just the sheer amount of information that is creating new privacy
challenges, it is the fact that you can now glean incredible insight from
sensors and other instrumentation technologies and that you can share that data
very easily. Privacy by design needs to be baked into these solutions from the
beginning of the process.


In the absence of government regulations around privacy, with the notable
exception of those that have cropped up around healthcare organizations and
electronic medical records, companies need to move proactively to develop strong
policies. There need to be ethics around analytics.


Businesses haven’t spent enough time thinking about how information collected
by smart buildings or smart cars or even smart refrigerators could be used for
purposes that infringe in some way on freedom. Who’s to say, for example, that
an authoritarian government won’t use the information collected by a smart car
to track and locate dissidents. Many of the same technologies used for smart
building energy systems are used in surveillance applications and there need to
be clear guidelines developed. That is not something that should be overlooked
or ignored.


Many of the questions raised around privacy that are fielded by his
team have to do with concerns over how technology could be used as part of an
oppressive regime. Google’s evolving policies in China are a great example of
the sorts of challenges businesses could face in the age of a smarter planet. As
smart cities move from pilot into reality, transparency will be paramount and
the individual needs to understand the implications of that
transparency.

Resources
Post Your Resume to 65+ Job Sites
Resume Service

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post