Developing a System for Processing Health Data of Children Using Digitalized Toys: Ethical and Privacy Concerns for the Internet of Things Paradigm

Sci Eng Ethics. 2018 Aug;24(4):1057-1076. doi: 10.1007/s11948-017-9951-x. Epub 2017 Aug 16.

Abstract

EDUCERE (Ubiquitous Detection Ecosystem to Care and Early Stimulation for Children with Developmental Disorders) is a government funded research and development project. EDUCERE objectives are to investigate, develop, and evaluate innovative solutions for society to detect changes in psychomotor development through the natural interaction of children with toys and everyday objects, and perform stimulation and early attention activities in real environments such as home and school. In the EDUCERE project, an ethical impact assessment is carried out linked to a minors' data protection rights. Using a specific methodology, the project has achieved some promising results. These include use of a prototype of smart toys to detect development difficulties in children. In addition, privacy protection measures which take into account the security concerns of health data, have been proposed and applied. This latter security framework could be useful in other Internet of Things related projects. It consists of legal and technical measures. Special attention has been placed in the transformation of bulk data such as acceleration and jitter of toys into health data when patterns of atypical development are found. The article describes the different security profiles in which users are classified.

Keywords: Big data; Internet of things; Motor development; Privacy; Security.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Big Data
  • Child
  • Child Development
  • Computer Security*
  • Computers
  • Confidentiality*
  • Data Collection / ethics*
  • Data Collection / methods
  • Decision Support Systems, Clinical / ethics*
  • Developmental Disabilities / diagnosis
  • Developmental Disabilities / therapy
  • Electronic Data Processing / ethics
  • Electronic Data Processing / methods
  • Electronic Health Records
  • Humans
  • Internet*
  • Motor Skills
  • Play and Playthings*
  • Privacy*
  • Telemedicine