Personal Data and the IoT at Mydata 2017

Research conducted at Lancaster University as part of PETRAS’s Adoption & Acceptability stream and House Training the Internet of Things project was presented recently at the academic track of the Mydata 2017 conference. Mydata is an international get together that aims to foster positive and human-centric innovation around the personal data. Presented to assembled lawyers, entrepreneurs, activists, and academics, the PETRAS research uses design fiction to explore the new design challenges for IoT devices which need to comply with the incoming General Data Protection Regulations, but are also pleasant and efficient to use.

The research builds upon the foundations of human-centric design principles, but extends these tools so they are fit for more complex network-enabled 21st century. The project prototyped an app that allows users to balance which features of their IoT devices are enabled again varying levels of privacy. In the example above the three circles provide users with visual feedback about how identifiable they are based on data held in their home, with known providers, or with third parties.

You can download the paper which discusses GDPR and the IoT here and view the supporting slide deck below.