About the IoT Privacy Infrastructure

Have you ever seen a sign that reads "this area under camera surveillance" and wondered whether the cameras are coupled to facial recognition or scene recognition software, who that footage might be shared with, and for how long it is retained? Until today, there was no standard mechanism to communicate this type of information to people. Yet smart sensors are everywhere. They are part of what is now referred to as the Internet of Things (“IoT”) with billions of devices already deployed today. The IoT Privacy Infrastructure developed at Carnegie Mellon University has been designed to address this problem.

It consists of two main components:

1. An IoT Assistant mobile app, which people can download on their smartphone to discover IoT technologies (“IoT resources”) around them and their data practices - what data they collect, for what purpose, how that data is processed, and whether there are any settings available to control what data is collected and how it is used,
2. A growing collection of IoT Resource Registries, where people can publicize the presence of IoT resources and their data practices in different areas. Find out more about how to easily create and publish IoT resource descriptions here , and find out how to download our IoT Assistant mobile app here.

New privacy regulations in the US and Europe require people who deploy IoT resources to disclose their data collection and use practices and to also give us some control over these practices such as opting in or out of them or requesting that our data be deleted. Our infrastructure has been designed to make it easy for you to comply with these requirements. Our IoT Assistant app provides users with a single interface through which they can discover IoT resources around them and access privacy options made available to them by these resources.

The IoT Privacy Infrastructure has been developed by a research group led by Prof. Norman Sadeh at Carnegie Mellon University as part of a project on Personalized Privacy Assistants funded by the DARPA/AFLR Brandeis Privacy Initiative and by the US National Science Foundation.

Note: At this time, we only support the creation and publication of IoT resources in the United States of America, Canada, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.