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The Internet of things, is it really that big?

27 Dec 2017

By : Angtyasti Jiwasiddi

The Internet of Things (IoT) seems to be the latest topic on eBusiness town, everyone hears about it somewhere, but mostly don’t really understand what is it. IoT loosely understood as devices and objects that are able to connect and exchange data.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for instance now defines the Internet of Things as “a global infrastructure for the Information Society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on, existing and evolving, interoperable information and communication technologies”

The origins of the term date back more than 15 years and have been attributed to the work of the Auto-ID Labs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on networked radio-frequency identification (RFID) infrastructures (Wortmann & Flüchter, 2015).

Stakeholders both from IT practitioners to politicians has started to acknowledge and understand the concept of IoT as a game changer, it creates endless opportunities at the same time creates new threats. Imagine when objects and devices that we often use on a regular basis contain the capability to store our data and transmit it…, say our hand watch can detect our heart and blood rate and automatically transmit it to our doctor, or even ambulance if the situation is recognized to be an emergency.

So, how big exactly is the internet of things?. When sensors, monitoring and all kinds of tracking methods are embedded in things of our daily lives, things such as cars that able to send signal and the whereabouts of its driver, who’s driving it, at what speed, heading where is just an old story. Sensors and monitoring that are embedded in people, like an ID card that carry full information about the person and can be automatically detected at every gate, will reveal not only names, gender, and race but also latest health condition, do they carry any diseases and viruses, medical record, criminal record, have they paid their taxes. At the very least many experts have to foresee that it can potentially cause a major invasion of privacy issues, even further, potential human rights issues, but then again like the flip side of a coin, IoT also creates opportunities like we never seen before.

One of the examples is how the manufacturing process can be equipped with multitude sensors that make every process can be controlled more precise and increase efficiency. When operating environments can detect a potential hazard, take corrective actions, avoid damages, risks and, in the end.. reducing risks and cost.

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