Visible to the public Privacy Mediators: Helping IoT Cross the Chasm

TitlePrivacy Mediators: Helping IoT Cross the Chasm
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsDavies, Nigel, Taft, Nina, Satyanarayanan, Mahadev, Clinch, Sarah, Amos, Brandon
Conference NameProceedings of the 17th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications
PublisherACM
Conference LocationNew York, NY, USA
ISBN Number978-1-4503-4145-5
Keywordsaugmented cognition, cloud, cloudlets, IoT, Metrics, privacy, privacy control, privacy mediators, Privacy Policies, pubcrawl, Resiliency, Scalability, Trust, user privacy, user privacy in the cloud
Abstract

Unease over data privacy will retard consumer acceptance of IoT deployments. The primary source of discomfort is a lack of user control over raw data that is streamed directly from sensors to the cloud. This is a direct consequence of the over-centralization of today's cloud-based IoT hub designs. We propose a solution that interposes a locally-controlled software component called a privacy mediator on every raw sensor stream. Each mediator is in the same administrative domain as the sensors whose data is being collected, and dynamically enforces the current privacy policies of the owners of the sensors or mobile users within the domain. This solution necessitates a logical point of presence for mediators within the administrative boundaries of each organization. Such points of presence are provided by cloudlets, which are small locally-administered data centers at the edge of the Internet that can support code mobility. The use of cloudlet-based mediators aligns well with natural personal and organizational boundaries of trust and responsibility.

URLhttp://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2873587.2873600
DOI10.1145/2873587.2873600
Citation Keydavies_privacy_2016