Here is a warning that we should acknowledge, regarding the so-called Internet of Things, as applied to “smart homes,” regarding security threats. These devices include smartphones, smart TVs, virtual assistants, and CCTV cameras, which are equipped with cameras, microphones, and other sensors that can detect what is happening in your home, which is indeed their very point regarding security. One needs to know if some crook has broken into the home and is now stealing one’s treasures.
But, can one trust the IT firms, and indeed, the IT itself, and who can access the data, and is there any potential for abuse? The study referenced below indicates that there is such a threat: “Analyzing the data collected by IoT Inspector, we found evidence of IoT devices inadvertently exposing at least one PII (Personally Identifiable Information), like unique hardware address (MAC), UUID, or unique device names, in thousands of real-world smart homes,” “Any single PII is useful for identifying a household, but combining all three of them together makes a house very unique and easily identifiable. For comparison, if a person is fingerprinted using the simplest browser fingerprinting technique, they are as unique as one in 1,500 people. If a smart home with all three types of identifiers is fingerprinted, it is as unique as one in 1.12 million smart homes.”