Hello all, my name is Evan Lafontaine, and I am an undergraduate researcher at North
Carolina State University.
Today we will be discussing my research about Understanding People’s Attitude and Concerns
towards Adopting IoT Devices, co-authored by Aafaq Sabir and Dr. Anupam Das.
As IoT adoption rates increase, we see an escalation in consumer privacy and security
concerns.
We seek to understand these concerns for both IoT and non-IoT users, as well as between
different cultures.
Understanding these cross-societal concerns is an important step towards mass adoption
of IoT devices.
In order to understand these concerns, we ask two main questions — (1) What perceptions
and concerns do IoT and non-IoT users have?
To what extent do such perceptions and concerns differ between IoT and non-IoT users?
(2) Are there differences in perceptions and concerns regarding adoption of IoT products
among people from different cultures and geographic regions?
To accomplish this, we elicit privacy concerns through a survey with 232 participants done
throughout two separate phases.
Pearson’s Chi Square test and Fisher’s Exact test were used to find statistically
significant differences, while the Uncertainty Coefficient was used to provide a measure
of nominal association.
Our survey elicited responses from IoT and non-IoT users, as well as participants from
different geographical regions.
We had an approximately equal distribution of IoT versus non-IoT users as well as participants
from different regions, allowing us to perform statistical analysis.
In the survey, we asked participants to discuss concerns regarding IoT devices, levels of
trust in their government, comfort levels using IoT devices in different settings, and
actions that could improve consumer trust, and as a result, improve IoT adoption rates.
IoT users mainly chose to adopt IoT devices because they were “tech savvy,” they “just
wanted to try it,” or due to its “convenience.”
On the other hand, non-IoT users did not buy IoT devices because they saw “no immediate
benefit,” it was “too expensive,” or they were “scared of personal data [collection].”
Furthermore, we can see that Indian IoT users bought devices due to social pressures, and
did not buy devices due to a poor internet connection.
Participants also discussed numerous concerns surrounding IoT devices.
IoT and non-IoT users share many concerns, with the predominant concerns being security
loopholes and transmitting data without consent.
We previously saw that Indian non-IoT users did not buy IoT devices due to poor internet
connectivity, we see this trend here, such that Indian users are very concerned about
network interference.
Looking at our participants’ comfort levels, we found statistically significant differences
between IoT and non-IoT users at home, with friends and family, with a colleague, and
after work.
We see that non-IoT and IoT users are equally uncomfortable using IoT devices in public
locations.
We see a similar trend by geolocation, such that American and European participants are
more hesitant using the devices in public locations.
However, Indian users are more comfortable using their devices in any location, from
the home to public spaces.
Furthermore, we see that only 10% of participants believe that sufficient laws are in place,
the majority of these being Indian participants.
Indian participants also have much more trust in their government.
Non-IoT and IoT users have similar distributions of trust, as they both mainly somewhat trust
their respective governments.
We found that participants did not prefer one particular action, rather, they each liked
different actions.
The majority of participants discussed stronger government regulations and summaries of actions
taken on data, while other participants discussed open-source systems surrounding IoT devices.
Based on these actions, we put forth recommendations to policymakers and governments to improve
consumer trust, and as a result, improve IoT adoption rates.
These include: third-party auditors that analyze a manufacturer’s data practices; real-time
or periodic summaries of actions taken on users’ data; stronger government regulations;
and more easily tune-able privacy settings.
Thank you for listening, and I would be happy to answer any questions!