Yours Truly? Survey on Accessibility of Our Personal Data in the Connected World
Manh Nguyen, Md Osman Gani, Vaskar Raychoudhury · 2019
Due to the advancement of embedded sensing and wireless communication technologies, in recent times, there is a sharp rise in the number of smart personal and home (multi-user) specific devices. Sensors embedded in these devices collect significant amount of personal data including raw sensor data and derived data, such as, motion, location, heart rate, oxygen saturation, step counts. This user generated data can be helpful to understand their behavior, activity, health, and quality of life and can help healthcare providers (if shared with users' consent), to get a better insight about patients and their everyday life. The lack of control over these personal data and their flow makes the user vulnerable to external attacks and data abuse. Also, most of the devices do not allow the users to access and share their self-produced raw sensor data. In this study, we investigate the accessibility of the user generated data for a wide range of currently available devices. We also present an overview of the type of data that popular home and wearable devices collect from their users. Finally, we propose a more accessible data platform where users can store and manage their data with other stakeholders in an acces.s-controlled manner.