Strictly alphanumeric data: Improving privacy in smart environments

Among the challenges for acceptance and adoption of Smart environments is users' privacy concern. Since almost every operations in Smart environments are seamlessly conducted with close monitoring, human users feel are not in control of their life. To address this challenge, this article proposes to limit the use of sensors to only Bluetooth, RFID and any other sensors that capture alphanumeric data. In this approach, human activities are explicitly represented and users' identities, through their devices, are used to trigger appropriate support. This approach reduces the amount of personal identifiable information (PII) to be collected, and therefore increase the chances of maintaining users' privacy. Additionally, since there will be no physical monitoring, users may feel comfortable to work in such environments and hence increase their acceptability. Although this is not a new approach to users' identification in Smart environments, there is no work that has associated this approach to privacy concerns.