The Internet of Things could encroach on personal privacy
White House report on IoT describes electrical devices with unique signatures that can tell a lot
A recent White House report on big data wonders aloud about the capability of sensors and smart meters to turn homes into fish tanks, completely transparent to marketers, police — and criminals.
Smart meters with non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) technology, which can analyze individual power loads, make it possible to know what you are doing and using in your home.
These systems can “show when you move about your house,” said the White House, in its just released report on the privacy implications of big data. The report explores both the benefits and perils created by these new systems, including ubiquitous deployment of sensors in the Internet of Things.
The White House concern about privacy in the home is based, in part, on research by Stephen Wicker, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University and a co-author of studies that have looked at some of the implications of “demand-response systems,” or smart meters.
Wicker’s work (download PDF) was cited in the White House’s report.
Electrical devices have unique signatures, and if home metering is sensitive enough it can “distinguish the microwave from refrigerator, or even the light bulb in the bathroom from the light bulb in the dining room,” said Wicker in an interview…