Project Summary

AGENCY’s smart home case study examines the digital risks, harms, and vulnerabilities associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) consumer products used in domestic settings. Smart home systems provide many benefits that enhance the well-being of their users. Smart home technologies aim to promote autonomy and agency, particularly for individuals with health challenges and other vulnerabilities, by simplifying daily routines. While they are becoming more accessible and affordable, these technologies are susceptible to varying levels of security and privacy risks that can lead to digital harms. Smart devices are subject to external cybercrimes involving surveillance by relevant authorities, hacking, and adversarial attacks. Smart devices and systems can also be exploited to cause IoT-enabled domestic violence, referred to as “tech abuse”. Tech abuse involves the misuse of smart home devices by malicious actors to engage in coercive and controlling behaviour including the harassment, monitoring, and surveillance of other householders in and beyond the home. Perpetrators exploit smart home devices’ security and privacy weaknesses and their own intimate knowledge of other householders’ daily routines and digital preferences to intimidate, frighten, and cause harm to them. Examples of such digital harms include remote control of the technology to spy on partners through audio and video functions and changing the functions of devices such as smart thermostats to traumatize user living conditions.

AGENCY’s smart home case study seeks citizen-centred design and policy solutions to combat the cybersecurity threats of these connected devices, with a focus on tech abuse as an exemplar. The aim is to identify strategies to enhance privacy and security and cede more autonomy and agency to users who are often rendered vulnerable by smart home technologies according to varied contexts of use and social factors of gender, age, disability, and cultural identity. Our focus on tech abuse enables the team to consider the complex ways in which smart home technologies’ security and privacy flaws impact on householders and how device uses may reflect or reinforce gender disparities in household relations.

Within this case study, our objectives are to:  

• Investigate the complex digital harms associated with smart home technologies to determine the range of privacy and security risks encountered by diverse household types, including a focus on smart-enabled intimate partner abuse.  
• Host knowledge workshops and engage in dialogue with relevant stakeholders and industry partners to determine the types, scale and causes of smart home security and privacy breaches implicated in the use of smart home systems and devices.   
• Host collaborative design-led workshops with smart home users and stakeholders to identify potential design solutions. 
• Establish common scenarios that reflect the types of devices and social situations that can trigger smart home threats and potential harms.   
• Advance innovative design-led research to advance the modelling of smart home threats to mitigate the complex digital harms involved in smart-enabled household practises.  

These research initiatives seek to tackle smart enabled complex harms encountered in and beyond the home by providing the relevant knowledge and expertise required to (a) advance robust design solutions and (b) inform and guide smart home design strategies and standards, corporate principles, and policy.