Human Data Interaction in IoT: The Ownership Aspect

Abstract—As Internet of Things (IoT) becomes a growing reality, more ubiquitous devices are embedded in our daily lives, serving us in a broad range of purposes in everyday life from: personal healthcare to home automation to tailored smart city services. These devices primarily collect data that is about or produced by people, be it street noise level of a neighbourhood, or the energy footprint of an individual’s home or her location and other situational context. As this unprecedented amount of data is collected, we are challenged with one fundamental research question: who owns this data and who should have access to it? Specifically, the emergent of the Human Data Interaction (HDI) topic which aims to put the human at the centre of the data driven industry, calls attention to the IoT community to address the data ownership aspect more carefully. In this note, we offer a reflection on the challenges that IoT faces in regards to the data ownership in HDI and advocate the roles that both ordinary people and industries must play to best answer those challenges in shaping the IoT landscape. I