Designing the Health-related Internet of Things: Ethical Principles and Guidelines

The conjunction of wireless computing, ubiquitous Internet access, and the miniaturisation of sensors have opened the door for technological applications that can monitor health and well-being outside of formal healthcare systems. The health-related Internet of Things (H-IoT) increasingly plays a key role in health management by providing real-time tele-monitoring of patients, testing of treatments, actuation of medical devices, and fitness and well-being monitoring. Given its numerous applications and proposed benefits, adoption by medical and social care institutions and consumers may be rapid. However, a host of ethical concerns are also raised that must be addressed. The inherent sensitivity of health-related data being generated and latent risks of Internet-enabled devices pose serious challenges. Users, already in a vulnerable position as patients, face a seemingly impossible task to retain control over their data due to the scale, scope and complexity of systems that create, aggregate, and analyse personal health data. In response, the H-IoT must be designed to be technologically robust and scientifically reliable, while also remaining ethically responsible, trustworthy, and respectful of user rights and interests. To assist developers of the H-IoT, this paper describes nine principles and nine guidelines for ethical design of H-IoT devices and data protocols

HealthBand:campaigning for an open and ethical Internet of Things through an applied process of design fiction

This paper discusses the creation of a design fiction that seeks to embody Sterling’s (2005) spimes concept – near future, Internet-connected, manufactured objects. HealthBand is a fictional open-source wearable device born in a future where public healthcare has become increasingly privatised. Social equity and citizen empowerment sit at the forefront of its design – the product is the culmination of crowd-sourced expertise and production capital. We contextualise the fictional device in relation to current proprietary Internet of Things products, democratised and open technological practices like the Maker Movement, and two previously identified design criteria for spimes – synchronicity and wrangling. We assert that the fiction can help to begin to establish spimes as a useful rhetorical lens through which product designers can speculate upon more socially responsible and ethical technological product futures that offer plausible alternatives to the homogenised, unsustainable and profit driven product design cultures of today

HealthBand:campaigning for an open and ethical Internet of Things through an applied process of design fiction

This paper discusses the creation of a design fiction that seeks to embody Sterling’s (2005) spimes concept – near future, Internet-connected, manufactured objects. HealthBand is a fictional open-source wearable device born in a future where public healthcare has become increasingly privatised. Social equity and citizen empowerment sit at the forefront of its design – the product is the culmination of crowd-sourced expertise and production capital. We contextualise the fictional device in relation to current proprietary Internet of Things products, democratised and open technological practices like the Maker Movement, and two previously identified design criteria for spimes – synchronicity and wrangling. We assert that the fiction can help to begin to establish spimes as a useful rhetorical lens through which product designers can speculate upon more socially responsible and ethical technological product futures that offer plausible alternatives to the homogenised, unsustainable and profit driven product design cultures of today

SmartLET: learning analytics to enhance the design and orchestration in scalable, IoT-enriched, and ubiquitous Smart Learning Environments

Proceeding of: 6th International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality (TEEM 2018), Salamanca, Spain, 24-26 October 2018This paper presents the SmartLET project, a coordinated research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, which just started in 2018. The main aim of this project is to provide support for the design and orchestration of Smart Learning Environments (SLEs) with the support of learning analytics and the Internet of Things. This paper gives an overview of our conception of SLEs based on previous works, provides some ideas about the connection of learning design and orchestration with SLEs, and analyses different ethical and privacy issues for SLEs. In addition, an initial hypothesis and some specific objectives for a support environment for SLEs are proposed

Ethical issues invoked by Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is universally referred to as the fourth industrial revolution. It is a current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. The computerisation of manufacturing includes, amongst other, cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and cognitive computing. There are many challenges in the realisation of Industry 4.0. In order to adopt a "smart factory" and improved (software) processes many ethical considerations need to be identified and considered if a company is to obtain an ethical development and deployment of Industry 4.0. The purpose of normative ethics is to scrutinise standards about the rightness and wrongness of actions, the ultimate goal being the identification of the true human good. A rational appeal can be made to normative defensible ethical rules in order to arrive at a judicious, ethically justifiable judgement. In this position and constructive design research paper our steps are: First we report on the findings of a broad literature review of related research, which refers to the current challenges in the realisation of Industry 4.0. Second, we identify and list some basic generic Deontological and Teleological ethical principles and theories that can serve as normative guidelines for addressing the challenges identified in the initial step. Third, we prescribe a set of ethical rights and duties that must be exercised and fulfilled by protagonists/stakeholders in Industry 4.0 implementation in order for them to exhibit ethical behaviour. Each of these suggested actions are substantiated via an appeal to one, or a number of the normative guidelines, identified in the second step. By identifying and recommending a set of defensible ethical obligations that must be fulfilled in the development and deployment of smart factories, protagonists such as: employers, project managers, technology suppliers, trade unions, (on a microscopic level) and chambers of commerce, local and national government (on a macroscopic level) and other can fulfil their ethical duties. Thus, a deployed Industry 4.0 solution can result in technological change, social change and changes in the business paradigm, which are all ethically justifiable. Ultimately all the improvement processes of Industry 4.0 implementation must be underpinned with ethical consideration

Hyper Competitive Digital Marketing-An Advancement in Technology & its Future Prospective

Purpose: The purpose of this text is to provide an overview of digital marketing and its significance in today's world. It touches upon the evolving landscape of marketing and the challenges marketers face in adapting to new technologies and consumer behaviors.   Design/methodology/approach: This section discusses the approach taken in the text. It outlines the content's structure and how it presents information about digital marketing, including its focus on communication, customer engagement, and ethical considerations.   Findings: The findings section summarizes key points about digital marketing, emphasizing the increasing importance of mobile devices and the uncertainty surrounding the impact of the Internet of Things (IoT). It also highlights the challenges marketers face in measuring the effectiveness of traditional advertising.   Research, Practical & Social implications: Here, we delve into the implications of digital marketing from three perspectives: research, practical application, and social impact. It explores the need for research agendas related to ethics, privacy, and bias in marketing, as well as how marketing strategies and consumer behavior may evolve.   Originality/value: This section underscores the originality and value of the text by emphasizing the unique insights it offers into the future of marketing, including the intersection of technology, economics, and geopolitics. It suggests that the text provides valuable insights into ethical considerations and potential changes in marketing practices

A European research roadmap for optimizing societal impact of big data on environment and energy efficiency

We present a roadmap to guide European research efforts towards a socially responsible big data economy that maximizes the positive impact of big data in environment and energy efficiency. The goal of the roadmap is to allow stakeholders and the big data community to identify and meet big data challenges, and to proceed with a shared understanding of the societal impact, positive and negative externalities, and concrete problems worth investigating. It builds upon a case study focused on the impact of big data practices in the context of Earth Observation that reveals both positive and negative effects in the areas of economy, society and ethics, legal frameworks and political issues. The roadmap identifies European technical and non-technical priorities in research and innovation to be addressed in the upcoming five years in order to deliver societal impact, develop skills and contribute to standardization.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

Internet and the flow of knowledge: Which ethical and political challenges will we face?

The term “knowledge” is used more and more frequently for the diagnosis of societal change (as in “knowledge society”). According to Bell (1973), since the 1970s we have been experiencing the ?rst phase of such a change towards a knowledge society, consisting of a rapid expansion of the academic system and a growth of investments in research and development in many countries. In this phase, as Castells (1996) points out, information technology has been rapidly changing the workplace as well as the composition of social organisations. In this first phase, the focus has been on scienti?c knowledge, its production and application in expert cultures. Since the Mid-1990s, however, this focus has been widening, such that one can speak of a second phase of the knowledge society (Drucker 1994a, 1994b; Stehr 1994; see also Knorr-Cetina 1998; Krohn 2001). Now it is no longer only scientific knowledge that is seen as driving the change, but also ordinary knowledge and practical knowledge, as know-how. The change is, as I would put it, autocatalytic, for typical of knowledge societies is “not the centrality of knowledge and information, but the application of such knowledge and information to knowledge generation and information processing/communication devices, in a cumulative feedback loop between innovation and the uses of innovation“ (Castells 1996: 32). Science has also been changing to be part of this loop, as shown in the rise of applied sciences and in the acknowledgement of uncertainty and ignorance issues (cf. Heidenreich 2002: 4 ff.; see also Hubig 2000 and Böschen & Schulz-Schaeffer 2003). The most significant change in this second phase however is the popularization of the Internet, that is seen as a key factor that governs societal change today. So what exactly is this “knowledge” that is driving present knowledge societies? Can we rely on the philosophical analysis of the term to get some insight here

eHealth and the Internet of Things

To respond to an ageing population, eHealth strategies offer significant opportunities in achieving a balanced and sustainable healthcare infrastructure. Advances in technology both at the sensor and device levels and in respect of information technology have opened up other possibilities and options. Of significance among these is what is increasingly referred to as the Internet of Things, the interconnection of physical devices to an information infrastructure. The paper therefore sets out to position the Internet of Things at the core of future developments in eHealt

Technical report and user guide: the 2010 EU kids online survey

This technical report describes the design and implementation of the EU Kids Online survey of 9-16 year old internet using children and their parents in 25 countries European countries