11th International Conference on Body Area Networks

Research Article

Fitness Trackers and Wearable Devices: How to Prevent Inference Risks?

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.15-12-2016.2267791,
        author={Ilaria Torre and Frosina Koceva and Odnan Ref Sanchez and Giovanni Adorni},
        title={Fitness Trackers and Wearable Devices: How to Prevent Inference Risks?},
        proceedings={11th International Conference on Body Area Networks},
        publisher={ACM},
        proceedings_a={BODYNETS},
        year={2017},
        month={4},
        keywords={user support service privacy management user attribute inference wearable devices fitness tracker internet of things personal data manager},
        doi={10.4108/eai.15-12-2016.2267791}
    }
    
  • Ilaria Torre
    Frosina Koceva
    Odnan Ref Sanchez
    Giovanni Adorni
    Year: 2017
    Fitness Trackers and Wearable Devices: How to Prevent Inference Risks?
    BODYNETS
    EAI
    DOI: 10.4108/eai.15-12-2016.2267791
Ilaria Torre1,*, Frosina Koceva1, Odnan Ref Sanchez1, Giovanni Adorni1
  • 1: Department of Computer Science, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering
*Contact email: ilaria.torre@unige.it

Abstract

Wearable and personal devices are becoming more and more part of people's everyday lives. These devices produce enormous amount of personal data which are handled by third parties as authorized by the user. However, such third parties may be able to infer sensitive information using the collected personal information. In this paper we present a case study based on fitness trackers and we sketch our model for privacy management and inference prevention. For this study, we built a Bayesian Network and used it to compute the risk of inferring unknown data. Using the simulated case we show the feasibility of inferring some private data from a set of personal data available to a third party as authorized by the user (i.e., sensor data and profiling data provided by the user while registering for the service). This paper provides a step towards the open issues of privacy and security management in the field of ubiquitous devices.