Earlier in the year I was asked by leading PR consultancy Tyto and Russell Goldsmith from the C-Suite Podcast for my thoughts on the Internet of Things to form part of a larger report from other experts on the promise of IoT. I last appeared on the C-suite Podcast back in 2014.

You can listen to the podcast below.

On the podcast, Tyto co-founder and Managing Partner, Brendon Craigie chat with Russell Goldsmith to explain why they put this report together. Russell also speaks to Actionable Futurist, Andrew Grill and Abraham Joseph, Founder of IoT insights, plus Stephanie Atkinson, CEO of Compass Intelligence joined the discussion in the studio via Skype from her offices in San Antonio in Texas.

We also hear from two more IoT experts from the US, Dan Yarmoluk, Director of Business Development for IoT and Data Science at ATEK Access Technologies and Rich Rogers, Senior Vice President for IoT Product & Engineering at Hitachi Vantara.

My contribution is below and you can read from the other experts here.

“As IoT devices and services start to go mainstream, the issue of data privacy is more important than ever. End-users should be given the opportunity to understand what data is collected and why. The notion of consumers being able to “opt-out” of an IoT-powered service needs to be seriously considered. We are in the age of GDPR and enhanced data privacy requirements, an age in which an increasingly savvy consumer is very aware of the power and the intrinsic value of his or her data.

In 2018 we are likely to see more focus on making the data that is being collected available to the end-user. In the age of the connected car it is no longer appropriate for the car manufacturer, who is collecting data on every journey, to keep this data to themselves. Data-savvy consumers will start to demand access to information that they helped generate. This will become a focus among IoT suppliers and lawmakers.”

What is your view on the Internet of Things?