The Balance Between Security, Privacy and Data Protection in IoT Data Sharing: A Critique to Traditional “Security&Privacy” Surveys

The paper examines the normative challenges of the Internet of Things (IoT), in particular, taking into account today’s debate on privacy, data protection, and security issues brought about by IoT. Three different layers of complexity are under scrutiny. They regard (i) moral and political theories on the concept of ‘security’; (ii) whether and to what extent information security technologies, in the context of IoT, may affect fundamental rights, such as privacy and data protection; and, (iii) new legal challenges for individual and group privacy and data protection. The overall aim of the paper is, on the one hand, to stress basic differences between privacy and data protection and why the distinction matters vis-à-vis the flow of information and data sharing on IoT. On the other hand, the intent is to stress the different meanings security has in this context, since the word is often used interchangeably to address information security, cybersecurity, or safety issues. We should take these distinctions firm, when striking balances between privacy, data protection, and ‘security’ on IoT.