Privacy Challenges in Ambient Intelligence Systems

in Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments (2016)

Today, privacy is a key concept. It is also one which is rapidly evolving with technological advances, and there is no consensus on a single definition for it. In fact, the concept of privacy has been ... [more ▼]

Today, privacy is a key concept. It is also one which is rapidly evolving with technological advances, and there is no consensus on a single definition for it. In fact, the concept of privacy has been defined in many different ways, ranging from the “right to be left alone” to being a “commodity” that can be bought and sold. In the same time, powerful Ambient Intelligence (AmI) systems are being developed, that deploy context-aware, personalised, adaptive and anticipatory services. In such systems personal data is vastly collected, stored, and distributed, making privacy preservation a critical issue. The human- centred focus of AmI systems has prompted the introduction of new kinds of technologies, e.g. Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET), and methodologies, e.g. Privacy by Design (PbD), whereby privacy concerns are included in the design of the system. One particular application field, where privacy preservation is of critical importance is Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). Emerging from the continuous increase of the ageing population, AAL focuses on intelligent systems of assistance for a better, healthier and safer life in their living environment. In this paper, we first build on our previous work, in which we introduced a new tripartite categorisation of privacy as a right, an enabler, and a commodity. Second, we highlight the specific privacy issues raised in AAL. Third, we review and discuss current approaches for privacy preservation. Finally, drawing on lessons learned from AAL, we provide insights on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Part of our methodology is a statistical analysis performed on the IEEE publications database. We illustrate our work with AAL scenarios elaborated in cooperation with the city of Luxembourg. [less ▲]

Introducing Conviviality as a New Paradigm for Interactions among IT Objects

in Proceedings of the Workshop on AI Problems and Approaches for Intelligent Environments (2012, August), 907

The Internet of Things allows people and objects to seamlessly interact, crossing the bridge between real and virtual worlds. Newly created spaces are heterogeneous; social relations naturally extend to ... [more ▼]

The Internet of Things allows people and objects to seamlessly interact, crossing the bridge between real and virtual worlds. Newly created spaces are heterogeneous; social relations naturally extend to smart objects. Conviviality has recently been introduced as a social science concept for ambient intelligent systems to highlight soft qualitative requirements like user friendliness of systems. Roughly, more opportunities to work with other people increase the conviviality. In this paper, we first propose the conviviality concept as a new interaction paradigm for social exchanges between humans and Information Technology (IT) objects, and extend it to IT objects among themselves. Second, we introduce a hierarchy for IT objects social interactions, from low-level one-way interactions to high-level complex interactions. Then, we propose a mapping of our hierarchy levels into dependence networks-based conviviality classes. In particular, low levels without cooperation among objects are mapped to lower conviviality classes, and high levels with complex cooperative IT objects are mapped to higher conviviality classes. Finally, we introduce new conviviality measures for the Internet of Things, and an iterative process to facilitate cooperation among IT objects, thereby the conviviality of the system. We use a smart home as a running example. [less ▲]

Modeling and Evaluating Cooperation in Multi-Context Systems using Conviviality

in Proceedings of BNAIC 2012 The 24th Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2012)

Multi-Context Systems is a rule-based representation model for distributed, heterogeneous knowledge agents, which cooperate by sharing parts of their local knowledge through a set of bridge rules also ... [more ▼]

Multi-Context Systems is a rule-based representation model for distributed, heterogeneous knowledge agents, which cooperate by sharing parts of their local knowledge through a set of bridge rules also known as mappings. The concept of conviviality was recently proposed for modeling and measuring cooperation among agents in multiagent systems. In this paper, we describe how conviviality can be used to model and evaluate cooperation in Multi-Context Systems. As a potential application, we also propose a conviviality based method for inconsistency resolution based on the idea that the optimal solution is the one that minimally decreases the conviviality of the system. [less ▲]