Internet of Things and the Law: Legal Strategies for Consumer-Centric Smart Technologies is the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the legal issues in the Internet of Things (IoT). For decades, the decreasing importance of tangible wealth and power – and the increasing significance of their disembodied counterparts – has been the subject of much legal research. For some time now, legal scholars have grappled with how laws drafted for tangible property and predigital ‘offline’ technologies can cope with dematerialisation, digitalisation, and the internet. As dematerialisation continues, this book aims to illuminate the opposite movement: rematerialisation, namely, the return of data, knowledge, and power within a physical ‘smart’ world. This development frames the book’s central question: can the law steer rematerialisation in a human-centric and socially just direction? To answer it, the book focuses on the IoT, the sociotechnological phenomenon that is primarily responsible for this shift. After a thorough analysis of how existing laws can be interpreted to empower IoT end users, Noto La Diega leaves us with the fundamental question of what happens when the law fails us and concludes with a call for collective resistance against ‘smart’ capitalism.

In the Internet of Things (IoT) era, online activities are no longer limited to desktop or laptop computers, smartphones and tablets. Instead, these activities now include ordinary tasks, such as using an internet-connected refrigerator or washing machine. At the same time, the IoT provides unlimited opportunities for household objects to serve as surveillance devices that continually monitor, collect and process vast quantities of our data. In this work, Stacy-Ann Elvy critically examines the consumer ramifications of the IoT through the lens of commercial law and privacy and security law. The book provides concrete legal solutions to remedy inadequacies in the law that will help usher in a more robust commercial law of privacy and security that protects consumer interests.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference for Industry and Academia on the Internet of Things, IOT 2008, held in Zurich, Switzerland, in March 2008. The 23 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 92 initial submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on EPC network, middleware, business aspects, RFID technology and regulatory issues, applications, and sensing systems.

The Internet of Things as an emerging global Internet-based information archit- ture facilitating the exchange of goods and services is gradually developing. While the technology of the Internet of Things is still being discussed and created, the legal framework should be established before the Internet of Things is fully operable, in order to allow for an efective introduction of the new information architecture. If a self-regulatory approach is to be adopted to provide a legal framework for the Internet of Things, and this seems preferable, rulemakers can draw on experiences from the current regime of Internet governance. In the near future, mainly businesses will operate in the Internet of Things. Civil society is only expected to make use of the Internet of Things, as it now does of the Internet, at a later stage (e.g. for healthcare). The Internet of Things will have an impact in various areas. The regulatory fra- work must provide for provisions ensuring the security of the structure as well as the privacy of its users. Furthermore, legal barriers that may stand in the way of the coming into operation of the Internet of Things will have to be considered. However, the Internet of Things will also have positive efects in diferent felds, such as the inclusion of developing countries in global trade, the use of search engines to the beneft of civil society, combating product counterfeiting, tackling environmental concerns, improving health conditions, securing food supply and monitoring compliance with labor standards.

This book explains IoT technology, its potential applications, the security and privacy aspects, the key necessities like governance, risk management, regulatory compliance needs, the philosophical aspects of this technology that are necessary to support an ethical, safe and secure digitally enhanced environment in which people can live smarter. It describes the inherent technology of IoT, the architectural components and the philosophy behind this emerging technology. Then it shows the various potential applications of the Internet of Things that can bring benefits to the human society. Finally, it discusses various necessities to provide a secured and trustworthy IoT service.