The Brave New World of Ambient Intelligence: An Analysis of Scenarios Regarding Privacy, Identity and Security Issues

The success of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) will depend on how secure it can be made, how privacy and other rights of individuals can be protected and how individuals can come to trust the intelligent world that surrounds them and through which they move. This contribution presents an analysis of ambient intelligence scenarios, particularly in regard to AmI’s impacts on and implications for individual privacy. The analysis draws on our review of more than 70 AmI projects, principally in Europe. It notes the visions as well as the specifics of typical AmI scenarios. Several conclusions can be drawn from the analysis, not least of which is that most AmI scenarios depict a rather too sunny view of our technological future. Finally, reference is made to the SWAMI project (Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence) which, inter alia, has constructed ”dark” scenarios, as we term them, to show how things can go wrong in AmI and where safeguards are needed.