Overview

The market for smart home devices is fraught with insecurity and privacy risks. What can be done? If devices were designed with privacy, security, interoperability and sustainability in mind, things would be better. But how?

We first published this article as a spotlight feature of the 2018 Internet Health Report, and are sharing it again now as part of our *Privacy Included special edition. It explains why smart home security matters to the health of the internet, even if you don’t own any connected ‘things’ yourself. There is no shortage of stories about security gone wrong – and this article presents more questions than answers. But it’s also true that in the short time since its publication, a lot of thinking and action has evolved about what to do. – Solana Larsen

There may be just one brand name on the box, but when you speak to a smart home assistant or jog with a fitness tracker, you’re interacting not with a single technology, but with a number of deeply connected technologies that may also be manufactured and maintained by different companies. In the design of any smart device there are decisions about five key components that will have lasting impact on the privacy, security, interoperability and sustainability of the product — and therefore also on the wider ecosystem of the Internet of Things (IoT).