De-camouflaging chameleons: Requiring transparency and privacy protection in the IoT
Information and communications technology and the development of the so-called ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) provide new and valuable affordances to businesses and consumers. The use of sensors, software, and interconnectivity (marketed as ‘smartness’) provide digital devices with useful adaptive capabilities. The rapid development of so-called ‘smart devices’ means that many everyday items are now impenetrable ‘black boxes’. However, unlike non-computerised devices, their behaviours are not fixed for all time and they can be subverted for corporate deceit, surveillance, or computer crime. They become ‘chameleon devices’.