A Study on Privacy of IoT Devices among a Sample of Indians in the U.S- 2021

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) has gained immense popularity over the last decade with wide-ranging applications in domains of medicine, science, military as well as domestic use. Despite its tremendous growth, privacy concerns plague IoT applications and have the potential to hamper the benefits derived from its usage. This paper carries out a statistical analysis of empirical data collected from users of IoT to assess the level of awareness among users of IoT. The mode of study was through a questionnaire sent through Google forms to a selection of Indians living across the U.S. The place was chosen as some of the authors were in that country and also because its usage is more in the U.S. Many homes have extensive use of IoT, even if it’s for simple operations like turning on/off electric bulbs. Privacy issues have also been a matter of concern as these devices are linked to the internet. The sample was chosen from judgment /convenience sampling. Only one member per family was asked to respond so that there is no overlap of the collected data. The respondents were asked about the privacy issues of using IOT devices and also if it bothered them to continue usage. The results showed that not only were users aware of the privacy issues related to IoT, but they also expressed concerns over the same. Due to the convenience and ease of usage, it is highly unlikely that people will stop using these devices but definitely, the usage will be more guarded in the future.