IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2021 - 101

Improving Soft Law
Governance of the
Internet of Things
Jordan M. Buckwald and Gary E. Marchant
Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona
State University, Phoenix, AZ 85004 USA
 From smart cities to smart homes to smart factories,
the Internet of Things (IoT) is the underlying technology
that is powering a sea change in human-technological
interaction. The IoT consists of
an
ever-expanding network of " things " that are connected
to the Internet. These connected " things " go beyond
the ubiquitous Internet and mobile platforms currently
in existence, such as laptops and smartphones, and
now include medical devices [1], smart meters [2],
home personal assistants [3], smart home appliances,
and motor vehicles [4], to name some examples. With
an estimated 22 billion IoT connected devices in use
around the world as of 2018 [5], there are already
more " things " connected to the Internet than people,
and forecasts are that there will be between 40 and 50
billion connected " things " by 2025 [6].
The rapid development of the IoT is being accelerated
by two related converging technologies. First,
the large amounts of data generated from such a
massive array of devices can now be processed using
artificial intelligence (AI) to provide new insights,
patterns, and trends that were never previously available,
promising huge leaps in technological innovation
[7]. Second, fifth-generation (5G) technology is
expected to greatly accelerate the use and benefits
of the IoT due to the increased speed and availability
of connectivity.
Connected IoT devices can provide enormous
benefits in improving the convenience, safety, and
capabilities of citizens in their homes, workplaces,
and communities, as well as improving the efficiency
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2021.3123731
Date of current version: 7 December 2021.
December 2021
and power of large industrial and infrastructure systems.
Nevertheless, with increasing adoption of IoT
systems across diverse sectors of society, numerous
challenges have arisen. For consumers, data privacy
and security concerns rank at the top of the list.
These concerns have led to a growing examination
of the implications of the IoT, particularly with respect
to law and policy. For example, the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) has recommended to Congress that
it enacts " strong, flexible, and technology-neutral federal
legislation, " to strengthen its existing enforcement
tools for IoT [8]. The FTC has also called on industry
professionals to build security into their devices and to
develop best practices for IoT privacy and security by
participating in multistakeholder groups [8]. We echo
and build on these below.
In this article, we explore the potential role of
such " soft law " approaches, including initiating a
new IoT multistakeholder process to address the
implementation of privacy and security by design
features and the use of blockchain solutions to
govern the IoT. In so doing, we take an anticipatory
approach that looks not only at the initial early
deployment of IoT systems today, but also at the
much greater role projected for the IoT in the nearto
medium-future, consistent with the recognized
need to consider anticipatory governance of rapidly
emerging technologies [9], [10]. We also focus on
the United States context as a case study, as laws
in other jurisdictions relating to data privacy and
blockchain [for example, the European Union General
Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR)] raise
additional complexities that space does not allow
us to address here. No comprehensive legislation or
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101
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