The internet of things – who wins, who loses?

IoT is helping make privacy and autonomy the preserve of the powerful. As technology's glare increases, it's imperative we question who benefits from it

Recently I went on a BBC news programme to give "the privacy side" of a technology story. Employees of a software company in Sweden had implanted chips in their wrists that activated the company photocopier. Yes, you read that right. Having minor surgery instead of just remembering a four-digit PIN is a pretty daft idea. You'd have to be a tech utopian to want to do it.

But this news story wasn't just about privacy and new technologies, and how "we'll all soon be doing it". This story was about power: who has it, who doesn't, how it is used. And the internet of things, too, is about power.