Privacy issues in AmI spaces

Abstract

New emerging technologies create a distributed environment where devices, sensors and wired and wireless networks become invisible and humans come to the foreground. User information is being collected, processed and shared. The Ambient Intelligence (AmI) world is a computing environment functioning in an ubiquitous manner, combining data from a diverse set of resources and monitoring user health, preferences, security and movement in an interactive and user-friendly way. This networked intelligence, which is based on intensive user profiling, is increasing concerns on the preservation of human privacy. In this work, we identify the characteristics of AmI spaces and their implications on users' privacy. We examine the regulatory privacy framework in the European Union (EU) and identify the existing inefficiencies to cope with the new challenges of AmI spaces. We discuss the issues that need to be addressed during the design, implementation and adoption of such services. We argue that AmI technology adoption has to be in line with users' need for institutions to respect their right to privacy.