As we progress day by day into the Internet of Things, our greatest challenge is protection of confidential data. Recently, data security breaches like the one at parenting retailer Kiddicare have sent waves of panic through the market. No security infrastructure yet devised is infallible and hackers are becoming exceptionally good at infiltrating high-security online databases. As the volume of data going online increases, the battle over privacy and security will intensify. So far, there doesn't appear to be a win-win solution to this huge challenge of consumer data protection. However, one potential ray of hope is the trend towards using open source and companies understanding that they need pool their security burden by inviting in third parties to assist. By inviting in others to help, we could potentially create a neighbourhood watch type of system that would add greater protection to system vulnerabilities. Whatever the future holds, encryption systems will need to become much more sophisticated to keep confidential data secure. The video below is worth watching to get an understanding of the future development of security and privacy. One of the ideas bounced around in this discussion is that tech is the problem and human beings are the solution, rather than the other way around! Any effective solutions we come up with will be the product of human ingenuity rather than technological reliability.
