A Methodology for Human-Centred IoT Collectives Based on Socio-Ethical Policies

An emerging aspect to consider during human-device interaction is addressing ethical concerns about smart, internet-connected devices and making them behave in a more human-centred manner, i.e., ethically and in a socially acceptable manner. We propose that smart devices can be made to behave in a more human-centred manner, by the application of a set of policies to their fundamental operations, if a technique for defining their key roles and mapping ethical and administrative policies to them is developed. This paper proposes a methodology which consists of four primary phases, including concept development, defining and mapping policies, implementing the processing of policies and deploying the devices. Our suggested methodology may be used in a variety of situations where smart devices interact with people. For illustration, we have applied the proposed methodology to a supermarket scenario where each phase defined in the methodology has been followed.