The Internet of Things is coming. But what do we do about issues of identity?
The IoT opens many doors. The saying goes that doors are easy – but locks are hard. How do we build a layer of privacy onto the IoT?
Consult Hyperion and Surrey’s Centre for the Digital Economy (CoDE) recently ran a highly interactive workshop session designed specifically for our 5GIC SME Technology Pioneer Members. This was a three-hour ‘business experiment’, where we took over the entire Business Insights Lab (BiL) for a plenary space, breakout work ‘pods’ with our famous MagicWalls, presentations, , and discussion. There was a fantastic atmosphere of buzzing energy, humour, brainstorming and non-stop ideas.
The story of the invention of barbed wire started us off by framing the IoT much like the American Wild West of two centuries ago: in a wide-open, unboundaried space of endless (and fence-less) opportunity, how do we identify what’s mine, and what’s yours? Until some kind of ‘fencing’ is invented, the Wild West is just a lawless landscape, rather than a productive economic resource. The early American settlers knew this, and refused to head West because they couldn’t make a living. Now, their modern descendants are running full-tilt towards the same situation, minus the old-fashioned circumspection. What is the IoT’s ‘barbed wire’ going to be? How will it look? How will it work?
We are working our way together towards – if not ‘the answers’ – the next set of questions, and potential solutions. The IoT space reaches into every business, and this makes it the perfect playing field to test in real-time how much collaboration is possible both within and across sectors.
#IDIoT is a structure to explore Identification issues arising from the emerging Internet of Things, and how they could be framed in a context, using a ‘3 Rs’ approach:
- Recognition – what is that device (person/thing) that I’ve discovered?
- Relationship – what types/levels of data should I provide to/access from the device? Who owns the data? What value is there in these data, and to whom?
- Reputation – what does that stream of data look like over time? Is it reliable/trustworthy? Is it valuable, and to whom?
This workshop was the first of many opportunities for our cutting-edge SME group to work collaboratively on the real and pressing issues of the day, as well as connecting with the broader University community and a select group of large enterprises.
If you’d like to be part of the conversation, please get in touch.
