IoT Privacy by Design

The Extent Of Iot In Modern Society

The number of connected IoT devices worldwide has grown rapidly over the last few years and is projected to grow steadily over the following decade. An approximation of over 13 billion connected devices in 2022 projects growth to 30 billion devices by 2030 with a 10% CAGR. Similar growth estimates are reported by other research groups (Statista, 2022).

As discussed by (Espinoza, McGroarty, O'Mahony, & Ziouvelou, 2020), the main regions accountable for the largest number of connected devices are Asia, North America and Western Europe, followed by proportionate investments in countries like China, the USA, Germany, France and the UK. The main fields of IoT applications are Manufacturing, Agriculture, Healthcare, Transportation, and Home Use, with further applications in education, retail, other industries and the military (Alferidah & Jhanjhi, 2020). Especially in industrial contexts, IoT’s impact has been significant in revolutionising the sector and signifying the establishment of Industry 4.0, together with technologies such as Blockchain, 3D Printing and the utilisation of Big Data (Siqin, Choi, Chung, & Wen, 2022). Across all fields, many IoT devices are already established and available in the public or industrial market. These span from various types of connected sensors constantly transmitting and receiving data to actuators and robotic devices utilised for a large and continuously increasing number of applications, as seen in Table 1.