Internet of Things: A Technological and Ethical Consideration
By Avinash Agarwal
UPSC General Studies: GS Paper III (Science & Technology) and GS Paper IV
Table of
Contents
What is the meaning of IoT?
Examples of Impact of IoT on day to day Life
Examples of Impact of of IoT on Governance
Challenges thrown up by advent of IoT
Government of India and IoT
Indian Industry & IoT
Indian Jobs & IoT
What can be done to minimize the adverse impact on
labour due to IoT?
IoT and Ethical Dilemma
* IoT brings forth the following ethical question
* Example of How IoT may breach Individual Privacy
* Example of How IoT may even Endanger Safety
* IoT Concerns on a Utilitarian Framework
* Why it may difficult to evaluate IoT against solely
an ethical framework?
* Way Ahead
Bibliography
 |
| As per a report by Gartner the total revenue generated from IoT industry worldwide would be $300 billion and the number of connected devices would be 27 billion by 2020. India is assumed to account for 5-6 per cent of the global pie. |
What is the meaning of IoT?
Ubiquity of Broadband Internet: Broadband Internet is become more widely available, the cost of connecting is decreasing, more devices are being created with Wi-Fi capabilities and sensors built into them, technology costs are going down, and smartphone penetration is sky-rocketing. All of these things are creating a “perfect storm” for the IoT.
Connecting devices via internet: Simply put, this is the concept of basically connecting any device with an on and off switch to the Internet (and/or to each other). This includes everything from cellphones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices and almost anything else you can think of. This also applies to components of machines, for example a jet engine of an airplane or the drill of an oil rig. (DANGER: Hacker can take down a plane or cause an accident on the rig!)
So essentially, what is IoT? The IoT is a giant network of connected “things” (which also includes people). The relationship will be between people-people, people-things, and things-things.
Examples of Impact of IoT on day to day life:
* Car-Calendar Connection: Say for example you are on your way to a meeting; your car could have access to your calendar and already know the best route to take. If the traffic is heavy your car might send a text to the other party notifying them that you will be late.
* Alarm Clock-Coffee Maker Connection: What if your alarm clock wakes up you at 6 a.m. and then notifies your coffee maker to start brewing coffee for you?
* IoT and Google's Driverless Car: The car has multiple devices which track the movement of objects, captures the images surrounding it and processes the information. It has devices on board that can change the speed and direction of movement depending on the feedback it gets from the external environment. The data is then backed-up on a cloud from which it can receive instructions and behave accordingly, right from throttle accelerator to applying brakes.
Examples of Impact of of IoT on Governance:
* On a broader scale, the IoT can be applied to things like transportation networks: “smart cities” which can help us reduce waste and improve efficiency for things such as energy use; this helping us understand and improve how we work and live.
Challenges thrown up by advent of IoT
* Data Management: Connected devices are going to produce massive amount of data. Companies need to figure out a way to store, track, analyze and make sense of the vast amounts of data that will be generated.
* Privacy & Security: With billions of devices being connected together, what can people do to make sure that their information stays secure? Will someone be able to hack into your toaster and thereby get access to your entire network? The IoT also opens up companies all over the world to more security threats. Then we have the issue of privacy and data sharing.
* Future of work? (Scroll below to the section of Indian Jobs and IoT)
* How will the Trade Unions react to these technologies?
* Availability of Spectrum (Especially true for India)
Government of India and IoT
The Union government is coming up with a regulatory framework for Internet-of-Things (IoT) along with policies to promote the sector.
Department of Telecom has come out with a machine-to-machine (M2M) roadmap, with an aim to put regulators, industry agencies that develop standards, users and manufacturers on the same page.
The Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), in its draft policy, targets to create an IoT industry in India of $15 billion by 2020.
Currently, work is going on in the area of numbering schemes for IoT and KYC norms for SIM-embedded M2M devices.
Telecom Standards Society of India too is working on India-relevant standards with respect to the sector.
Indian Industry & IoT
IoT and Healthcare Sector: Leading hospitals are discussing how to move to preventative therapy from curative therapy by collecting more data about the condition of the patient. This is clearly a sector where the needle has moved.
IoT and other Sectors: The other two sectors where there has been quite a lot of movement are in big production zones — oil rigs, generators and industrial plants — and in the telecommunications world. Both have a lot of embedded devices that are collecting the data on temperature, signal strength, pressure, pH, voltage — all the technical parameters. IoT is being used to detect and predict breakdowns. This is immensely beneficial, especially for corporates, particularly those who have interests in fixed assets/machines.
Media: Today, internet advertisers are able to combine data from various
seemingly insignificant activities to create potentially significant profiles.
This correlated data allows advertisers to send users targeted advertising as
they search the internet for that “must-have” new gadget or the latest song. In
fact, targeted web-based ads based on correlated user profiles derived from
statistical models are just the first generation of anticipatory services. Data
mining will only become more accurate over time at determining our desires and
needs.
Personal Healthcare: Many people today wear sensors when they work out
or move through their daily lives to track their heart rate, miles traveled, or
steps taken. These activity monitor sensors are connected wirelessly to smart
phones and to the internet to enable users to track metrics over time.
Indian Jobs & IoT
Views in the government:
Deepak J S, Secretary, Ministry of
Telecommunications @ 1st IoT India Congress (September, 2016):
Responding to a question at the
conference, Secretary (MoT) said IoT will cause disruption in several sectors
and might result in several lower level jobs being lost.
“However, higher level jobs will also
be created during the transformation,” Deepak added.
Indian start-ups, he said, should
make use of venture capital to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore that has been set
aside, to develop Internet-of-Things technologies in verticals such as smart
cities, e-retail, healthcare and others. Moreover, 100 per cent FDI in telecom
sector will also provide several opportunities, he added.
What can be done to minimize the adverse impact on labour due to IoT?
* We must note that this is not the first time that disruptive technology is going to come into play. It has happened before, and inevitably it will happen again. It is important to make strategies that will help our labour force to adapt to such technologies and take steps that will help mitigate the worst effects of these technologies.
* For adaption, Skill India Mission can be geared to either impart higher levels of skills required to operate with IoT; furthermore, SIM can be used to impart existing workforce a diverse set of skills so that their employ-ability is not impacted beyond repair.
* There may be some lay-offs temporarily. We need some new solutions to take care of those who will be laid off for no fault of theirs. Companies deploying IoT and consequently reducing workforce in a particular sector, must be encouraged to absorb the workers in another sector.
We must clearly note that companies employing IoT (& other automation solutions) will be doing so to enhance productivity, efficiency and finally the bottomline. They must be asked to set aside a mutually agreeable percentage of their revenues for the welfare of workers who will be laid off due to adoption of IoT and such other technologies. This must be over and above their CSR spending.
The rationale is that companies cannot go on a relentless drive to increase profits via adopting cutting edge technology without taking care of their labour force. If labour is laid off without care and protection, it may lead to social unrest and, worst still, a macroeconomic disaster.
A quantum of solace may lie in the fact that Corporate Sector employing formal labour are going to be the ones at forefront of adopting cutting edge technology. Formal labour force already benefit from social security measures such as pensions. But this must not become a reason to let-off the workers without protection.
Government, on this front needs to play as (some may rightly say more) proactive a role as it is playing in the promotion of policies that will help India adopt these cutting edge technologies.
IoT and Ethical Dilemma
IoT brings forth the following ethical question:
Is
it possible to avoid the IoT? As we move around our daily lives, should we
assume that our lives and/or behavior are being monitored at all times?
Example
of How IoT may breach Individual Privacy: Depending on the privacy policy in
place, a user's fitness information is sold to marketers who have an agreement
with her mobile phone provider to share data.
She might be shopping in the supermarket and start receiving coupons via
text messages or email (since her phone's geo-location services are enabled)
offering 10 percent off the latest weight-loss shake because “it appears you
are trying to lose weight and we can help.”
In effect, the IOT is anticipating what she might want to buy based on
metrics and her behavior. She may
welcome this opportunity to save money on something she hadn't considered
purchasing, for others though, such benign invasiveness is a concern.
Example
of How IoT may even Endanger Safety: As far back as 1993, Mark Weiser noted in
his article titled “Some Computer Science Issues in Ubiquitous Computer,” that
the idea of locational privacy “could be much worse in ubiquitous computing
with its more extensive use of cellular wireless. So a key problem with
ubiquitous computing is preserving privacy of location.” As a society, we
invariably have our cell phones with us, thus enabling ubiquitous computing.
Our cell phone and other smart devices collect data about our activities and
location that can be misused.
Amongst the ethical frameworks, the IOT generates the most concern under
a utilitarian approach. What exactly is this concern?
One theory is that the IOT will provide predictive capability by
catering to our inferred preferences, capabilities, or health-risks even before
we become aware of them. For example, as
a society is constantly monitored for its vital signs, is it simply becoming
data points to insurance companies? Care is required to ensure that by using
the IOT to gain a variety of benefits, society is not arguing that the health
of the aggregate population is the greatest good possible and of more
importance that the right of the individuals privacy, i.e. the core of the
utilitarian argument.
Why it may difficult to evaluate IoT against solely an ethical
framework?
Trying to find a set of common ethical points may be too difficult to
accomplish due to the variety of stakeholders involved across not only business
and industry, but also across nations. Given the IOT business benefits such as streamlined operations and
micro-targeted advertising, it appears IOT is unavoidable.
Way Ahead:
The key is informed consent by users to make sure they clearly
understand where the data they are generating is going and what is being done
with it. Currently, the best protection is to ensure that individuals
understand agreement terms of their devices. Just because something is good for
the aggregate does not necessarily mean it is good for the individual. As the
IOT continues to grow, we will repeatedly see these ethical questions raised
and new ones developing.
Bibliography
A Simple Explanation of Internet of
Things
Internet of Things: Let devices do the
talking
Internet of Things business to grow to
$15bn: Union Telecom Secretary
Ethical Challenges of the Internet of
Things
No comments:
Post a Comment