Big Data and the Internet of Things

Abstract

The privacy construct is an important aspect of internet of things (IoT) technologies as it is projected that over 20 billion IoT devices will be in use by 2022. Among other things, IoT produces big data and many industries are leveraging this data for predictive analytics to aid decision making in health, education, business, and other areas. Despite benefits in some areas, privacy issues have persisted in relation to the use of the data produced by many consumer products. The practices surrounding IoT and Big Data by service providers and third parties are associated with a negative impact to individuals. To protect consumers' privacy, a wide range of approaches to informational privacy protections exist. However, individuals are increasingly required to actively respond to control and manage their informational privacy rather than rely on any protection mechanisms. This chapter highlights privacy issues across consumers' use of IoT and identifies existing responses to enhance privacy awareness as a way of enabling IoT users to protect their privacy.