NSF Grant Funds Smart Home Privacy Project

Smart meters, connected thermostats and intelligent appliances are making the Connected Home a reality, and that’s great, but the unintended consequence is that huge amounts of private consumer data is suddenly vulnerable to any bad actor with a little knowhow and some interest. Experts and analysts are constantly warning everyone that our smart sensors and other Internet-connected devices can leak our sensitive private information. Also, we’re doomed. Probably.

Well, not anymore, thanks to a new grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to a team of computer scientists and engineers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The three-year, $486,524 grant will fund a project to enhance privacy in smart buildings and homes. David Irwin, Assistant Professor, electrical and computer engineering, and Prashant Shenoy, Professor, College of Information and Computer Sciences, will lead the project.

Irwin said that some of the necessary tests would be extremely disruptive in a real home, (no one will be surprised by this), and therefore the team will conduct most of the research in a prototype programmable building, now under construction. The test home will be equipped with smart light switches, thermostats, lighting, solar panels, energy storage, a battery array and a variety of other sensors. This super-connecting building will help the research team perform several layers of experiments using different techniques to encrypt the resulting data or otherwise protect privacy.

“It’s very easy to know whether someone’s home or not by following energy use data, so that might be considered sensitive information,” Irwin said. “On the other hand, energy companies can save you money by knowing that same information. They can charge you less for electricity in off-peak hours, for example. One thing we’ll be studying is how to preserve individual privacy while still allowing utilities to improve their operations.”

The research goals include developing both consumer- and utility-driven mechanisms to preserve sensor-data privacy. This research will also develop an approach to controllable privacy, to enable users to control the amount of information smart devices leak to third parties. “When we’re finished, we should be able to help people understand what commercial privacy products can be helpful to the public,” said Irwin.