Digital Privacy in the Era of Ubiquitous Smart Devices

ABSTRACT
The proliferation of interconnected smart devices, or the Internet of Things (IoT), has integrated itself into every facet of modern society, while simultaneously encroaching on fundamental digital privacy. This thesis aims to highlight the systemic forces driving privacy erosion in IoT as well as identify an important, under-research gap:legal and regulatory mechanisms for privacy and data protection are inherently ingrained to be ill-suited to regulate ongoing, multi-party data collection in pervasive smart environments. Through doctrinal and comparative legal research, the assumptions behind traditional notice-and-consent frameworks will be analyzed using contemporary standards, such as the European Union's GDPR and the United States, which is characterized by a patchwork of laws including the CCPA/CPRA.
The analysis shows how smart devices do what the law cannot-a trap of unavoidable passive surveillance, turning homes into mini mills of data mining. This paper argues that the law's existing statutory regimes will not do, because they reframe passive data collection as occasional, disparate events, not the ambient condition of homes. The findings show how safeguarding homes from digital surveillance calls for a fundamental shift-from individual consumer responsibility to strict, structural data minimization; from diaphanous privacy protections to algorithmic accountability. This paper concludes with a call for specific legislative revisions and engineering standards to build screens around privacy.