Informing The Future of Data Protection in Smart Homes
This is a position paper outlining a project to tackle data privacy issues for smart home users, but it is incremental as it focuses on methodology rather than new solutions.
The paper addresses the challenge of data protection in smart homes due to regulatory changes, proposing a research approach using ethnography and speculative design to inform future design practices.
Recent changes to data protection regulation, particularly in Europe, are changing the design landscape for smart devices, requiring new design techniques to ensure that devices are able to adequately protect users' data. A particularly interesting space in which to explore and address these challenges is the smart home, which presents a multitude of difficult social and technical problems in an intimate and highly private context. This position paper outlines the motivation and research approach of a new project aiming to inform the future of data protection by design and by default in smart homes through a combination of ethnography and speculative design.