Privacy in Smart Spaces: Protecting information in workplaces

Abstract

The workplaces organization has evolved during the last decades from individual private offices to open spaces, which offer a higher flexibility degree when there are important changes in firms’ necessities. In these open spaces, the optimization of environmental conditions are an essential factor to achieve employees’ adequate comfort levels to develop their tasks. The rise of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies has cheapened and extended the processes automation in tasks such as air conditioning, lighting control, etc. New challenges have arisen from this new scenario, where factors such as privacy and access control for personal information are crucial. In this work, we show the application of an access control system which is able to operate with different communications protocols to a use case based on a smart office. We have developed a prototype of the devices which would control the sensors and actuators in the system, and we have carried out a series of experiments to measure the delay added to communication when using the access control techniques. The results demonstrate the validity and feasibility of the system.