The Internet Of Things: Foundational Ethical Issues

This paper surveys foundational ethical issues that attach to the Internet of Things (IoT). In Section 1, we provide an overview of the technology, indicating both current and future applications. Subsequent sections consider particular ethical issues, including: informed consent (Section 2), privacy (Section 3), information security (Section 4), physical safety (Section 5), and trust (Section 6). Section 7 emphasizes that these ethical issues do not exist in isolation, but converge and intersect in myriad ways. And that these issues are not comprehensive, but rather are foundational starting points that stand to be expanded and further elucidated through future research.