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\nSome unusual witnesses helped convict Alex Murdaugh of the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul.<\/p>\n
\nSome unusual witnesses helped convict Alex Murdaugh of the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul.<\/p>\n
The first was Bubba, Maggie\u2019s yellow Labrador retriever. Prosecutors used\u00a0a recording of Bubba<\/a>\u00a0to place Alex at the site of the murders. Given Alex\u2019s presence at the crime scene, other witnesses then revealed his movements, tracked his speed and explained what he had in his hands. Those other witnesses were a\u00a02021 Chevy Suburban and Maggie, Paul and Alex\u2019s cellphones<\/a>, which all provided data. They\u2019re all part of the Internet of Things, also known as IoT.<\/p>\n The privacy implications of devices connected to the internet are not often the most important consideration in solving a murder case. But outside of criminal prosecution, they affect people\u2019s privacy in ways that should give everyone pause.<\/p>\n The Internet of Things includes any object or device that\u00a0automatically sends and receives data<\/a>\u00a0via the internet. When you use your phone to message someone or social media to post something, the sharing is deliberate. But the automatic nature of connected devices effectively cuts\u00a0humans out of the loop<\/a>. The data from these devices can reveal a lot about the people who interact with them \u2013 and about other people around the devices.<\/p>\n As an\u00a0assistant professor of law<\/a>\u00a0at the University of South Carolina, I have watched as new kinds of connected devices have entered the market. New devices mean new ways to collect data about people.<\/p>\n Connected devices collect information from different\u00a0contexts<\/a>. Take your refrigerator. As a non-IoT device, your fridge generated no data about your kitchen, your food or how often you peeked inside. Your relationship with the fridge was effectively private. Only you knew about that midnight snack or whether you ogled a co-worker\u2019s lunch.<\/p>\n Now,\u00a0smart refrigerators<\/a>\u00a0can respond to voice commands,\u00a0show images<\/a>\u00a0of the items in your fridge, track who opens it, suggest recipes, generate grocery lists and\u00a0even contact your car<\/a>\u00a0to let you know the milk has expired. All these functions require continuous streams of data.<\/p>\n Connected devices generate lots of data in contexts that have typically produced little data to\u00a0make those situations \u201clegible\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to whoever can access the data.<\/p>\n In the past, if you wanted to monitor your heart rate, blood oxygenation, sleep patterns and stress levels, you might have undergone a battery of tests at a hospital. Specialized equipment in a controlled setting would have measured your body and make these parts of you visible to highly trained, licensed professionals. But now, devices such as the\u00a0Oura Ring<\/a>\u00a0track and analyze all that information continuously, in non-health care contexts.<\/p>\n Even if you don\u2019t mind sharing data with an Internet of Things company, there are privacy risks to using a device like this. In the health care context, a series of rules enforced by several groups make sure that\u00a0connected equipment<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0data the equipment generates<\/a>\u00a0have adequate cybersecurity protections. Away from that context, connected devices that perform similar functions don\u2019t have to meet the same cybersecurity standards.<\/p>\n The\u00a0U.S. Cyber Trust Mark<\/a>\u00a0program, administered by the Federal Communications Commission, is developing cybersecurity standards for Internet of Things devices. But the program is voluntary. In some states,\u00a0such as Washington<\/a>, state laws set standards for protecting health data from connected devices. But these laws don\u2019t cover all data from all devices in all contexts. This leaves the devices, and the data they generate, particularly\u00a0vulnerable to unwanted access by hackers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your inability to control who sees the data that connected devices gather is another privacy risk. It can give advertisers insights about potential customers.\u00a0Absent a mandated opt-out<\/a>, each device provider can decide what it does with customer data. Amazon, for example,\u00a0recently removed<\/a>\u00a0the \u201cDo Not Send Voice Recordings\u201d option from the privacy settings of its popular smart speaker, Alexa.<\/p>\n Some connected-device providers\u00a0participate in data markets<\/a>,\u00a0selling your data<\/a>\u00a0to the highest bidder. Sometimes those purchasers include government agencies. So,\u00a0instead of needing a warrant<\/a>\u00a0to track your whereabouts or learn about activity in your home, they can\u00a0purchase or access<\/a>\u00a0Internet of Things records.<\/p>\n A connected device can also compromise the data privacy of someone who just happens to be nearby.<\/p>\n Cars have joined the ranks of the Internet of Things. The 2021 Chevy Suburban that helped convict Alex Murdaugh simply tracked information about the vehicle. This included the vehicle\u2019s speed, the turning radius of the steering wheel and time stamps.<\/p>\n Most modern vehicles also incorporate data from external sources. GPS data and infotainment systems that connect to cellphones also track the vehicle\u2019s movements. All of this data can also be used to\u00a0track the whereabouts and behavior<\/a>\u00a0of drivers and other people in the vehicles.<\/p>\n And as vehicles become increasingly automated, they need to make driving decisions in increasingly complex situations. To make safe driving decisions, they need data about the world around them. They need to know the size, speed and behavior of all the nearby vehicles on the roadway, moment to moment. They need to instantly identify the best way to avoid a pedestrian, cyclist or other object entering the roadway.<\/p>\n If you and I are driving in separate cars on the same roadway, it means my car is collecting information about you. And if my vehicle is connected,\u00a0then data about you is being shared<\/a>\u00a0with other cars and car companies. In other words, if a Tesla had been present at the scene of the Murdaugh murders,\u00a0its outward facing cameras<\/a>\u00a0could have captured footage<\/a>. Bubba\u2019s testimony might not have been necessary.<\/p>\n Internet of Things devices generate data from similar situations in a highly structured way. Therefore, what data collectors learn about me from my connected device may also give them\u00a0insights about someone else<\/a>\u00a0in a similar situation.<\/p>\n Take smart meters that\u00a0share information with the water utility<\/a>\u00a0every 15 minutes. Imagine a subdivision with a narrow range of house and yard sizes. Water usage should be relatively comparable for each household. Data from even just a couple of houses can give a good sense of what water use should be for everyone in the neighborhood. Without actually collecting data from each house, data from connected devices\u00a0reveals potentially private information<\/a>\u00a0about similarly situated people.<\/p>\n Data from IoT devices can also fuel insights into people who never use or make contact with these devices. Aggregated data from Oura rings, for instance, could contribute to decisions\u00a0a health insurer makes about you<\/a>.<\/p>\n Connected devices are also changing. In addition to collecting data about the person using the device, a growing number of sensors collect information about the environment around that person.<\/p>\n Some of my research<\/a>\u00a0has examined what privacy means for people observed by vehicle sensor systems such as radar, lidar and sonar. These technologies capture potentially very revealing information about people and their property. Even the most comprehensive privacy laws in the United States offer people little recourse for the impact to their privacy.<\/p>\n Civilian drones are\u00a0capable of gathering data about other people<\/a>. But people observed by drones would have a tough time learning that data about them exists and an even harder time controlling how that information might be used.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, artificial intelligence systems are expanding the ways Internet of Things data can affect the privacy of other people by automating the process of training IoT systems. AI chipmaker Nvidia has created a digital environment, or model, where people can upload their connected device data. This environment can help train IoT devices to \u201cpredict the outcomes of the device\u2019s interactions<\/a>\u00a0with other people,\u201d according to Nvidia.<\/p>\n Models like this make it easy for AI devices that you don\u2019t own to collect data or reach conclusions about you. In other words, IoT data processed by AI\u00a0can make inferences about you<\/a>, rendering you legible to the AI system even before you interact with an IoT device.<\/p>\n Internet of Things devices and the data they generate are here to stay. As the world becomes increasingly automated, I believe it\u2019s important to be more aware of the way connected devices may be affecting people\u2019s privacy.<\/p>\n The story of how vehicle data combined with cell data in the Murdaugh trial is a case in point. At the start of the trial, prosecutors\u00a0came ready to show<\/a>\u00a0\u201cphone call logs and texts, steps recorded, apps asking for information, GPS locations, changes when the phone went from vertical portrait mode to horizontal landscape mode and back, and \u2014 key to the prosecution\u2019s case \u2014 when the camera was activated.\u201d<\/p>\n But that was probably not enough to merit a conviction. During the trial, GM called and said something like \u201coh wait, we found something<\/a>,\u201d according to the prosecution. That vehicle data, combined with the cellphone data, told a story that Alex Murdaugh could not deny.<\/p>\n There are at least two lessons from this story. First, not even GM fully realized all the data it had collected in its vehicles. It\u2019s important to be aware of just how much information IoT devices are collecting. Second, combining data from different IoT devices revealed incontestable details of Alex Murdaugh\u2019s activities. Away from criminal court, combining data from multiple IoT devices can have a profound effect on people\u2019s privacy.<\/p>\n If people\u2019s data privacy matters, how do we address this reality? One way of potentially protecting people\u2019s privacy is to make sure people and communities observed by connected devices have a direct say in what data the devices collect and how the data is used.<\/p>\nThe Internet of Things<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Device data and your privacy<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Connected cars<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Spillover data collection<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Looking forward<\/strong><\/h4>\n