Bernard Marr Dec 6, 2019 – Forbes
Have you heard the term the Internet of Bodies (IoB)? That may conjure up a few thoughts that have nothing to do with the true nature of the term, but it’s about using the human body as the latest data platform. At first, this concept seems quite creepy, but then when you realize the possibilities it creates, it becomes quite exciting. Here we explore what the Internet of Bodies is, some examples in use today, and a few of the challenges it presents.
What is the Internet of Bodies (IoB)?
When the Internet of Things (IoT) connects with your body, the result is the Internet of Bodies (IoB). The Internet of Bodies (IoB) is an extension of the IoT and basically connects the human body to a network through devices that are ingested, implanted, or connected to the body in some way. Once connected, data can be exchanged, and the body and device can be remotely monitored and controlled.
There are three generations of Internet of Bodies that include:
· Body external: These are wearable devices such as Apple Watches or Fitbits that can monitor our health.
· Body internal: These include pacemakers, cochlear implants, and digital pills that go inside our bodies to monitor or control various aspects of our health.
· Body embedded: The third generation of the Internet of Bodies is embedded technology where technology and the human body are melded together and have a real-time connection to a remote machine.
Will The US Let The Chips Fall On Semiconductor Policy?
Progress in wireless connectivity, materials, and tech innovation is allowing implantable medical devices (IMD) to scale and be viable in many applications.
Examples of Internet of Bodies Devices in Use or Development
The most recognized example of Internet of Bodies is a defibrillator or pacemaker, a small device placed in the abdomen or chest to help patients with heart conditions control abnormal heart rhythms with electrical impulses. In 2013, former United States Vice President Dick Cheney got his WiFi-connected defibrillator replaced with one without WiFi capacity. It was feared that he could be assassinated by electric shock if a rogue agent hacked the device.
A “smart pill” is another IoB device. These pills have edible electronic sensors and computer chips in them. Once swallowed, these digital pills can collect data from our organs and then send it to a remote device connected to the internet. The first digital chemotherapy pill is now in use that combines chemotherapy drugs with a sensor that captures, records, and shares information with healthcare providers (with the patient’s consent) regarding the drug dosage and time, plus other data on rest and activity, heart rate and more.
“Smart contact lenses” are being developed that integrate sensors and chips that can monitor health diagnostics based on information from the eye and eye fluid. One smart contact lens in development aims to monitor glucose levels that will hopefully allow diabetics to monitor their glucose levels without repeated pinpricks throughout the day.
Taking it up a notch is the Brain Computer Interface (BCI), where a person’s brain is actually merged with an external device for monitoring and controlling in real-time. The ultimate goal is to help restore function to individuals with disabilities by using brain signals rather than conventional neuromuscular pathways.
But not all Internet of Bodies use cases are for healthcare reasons. Bioengineering company, Biohax has embedded chips in more than 4,000 people primarily for convenience. In one widely reported example, 50 employees of Three Square Market agreed to have an RFID microchip the size of a large grain of rice (similar to what’s embedded in pets to be able to identify and locate them when they are lost) implanted. This chip allows these employees to gain access to the building without a key, pay for items with a wave of their hand at the vending machine by deducting the amount immediately from their account rather than use money and log onto their computers.
Challenges Faced by Internet of Bodies Technology
The situation of U.S. Vice President Cheney getting a defibrillator not connected to WiFi for security reasons illustrates one of the biggest challenges faced by Internet of Bodies technology—how to secure the devices and information they collect and transmit. Nearly half a million pacemakers were recalled in 2017 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over security issues requiring a firmware update. The security challenges faced by Internet of Bodies tech are similar to what plagues Internet of Things generally, but there can be life and death consequences when IoB devices are involved. Additionally, IoB devices create another cyber security challenge that will need to be safeguarded from hackers.
Privacy is also of paramount concern. Questions about who can access the data and for what purpose need answers. For example, a device that monitors health diagnostics could also track unhealthy behaviors. Will health insurance companies be able to deny coverage when a customer’s IoB device reports their behavior? A cochlear implant could restore hearing, but it might also record all audio in a person’s environment. Will that data remain private?
As Internet of Bodies tech continues to grow, regulatory and legal issues will have to be resolved and policies built around the proper use of the technology.
The Internet of Bodies is here. This is how it could change our lives
04 Jun 2020 – Xiao Liu – World Economic Forum
- We’re entering the era of the “Internet of Bodies”: collecting our physical data via a range of devices that can be implanted, swallowed or worn.
- The result is a huge amount of health-related data that could improve human wellbeing around the world, and prove crucial in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
- But a number of risks and challenges must be addressed to realize the potential of this technology, from privacy issues to practical hurdles.
In the special wards of Shanghai’s Public Health Clinical Center, nurses use smart thermometers to check the temperatures of COVID-19 patients. Each person’s temperature is recorded with a sensor, reducing the risk of infection through contact, and the data is sent to an observation dashboard. An abnormal result triggers an alert to medical staff, who can then intervene promptly. The gathered data also allows medics to analyse trends over time.
The smart thermometers are designed by VivaLNK, a Silicon-Valley based startup, and are a powerful example of the many digital products and services that are revolutionizing healthcare. After the Internet of Things, which transformed the way we live, travel and work by connecting everyday objects to the Internet, it’s now time for the Internet of Bodies. This means collecting our physical data via devices that can be implanted, swallowed or simply worn, generating huge amounts of health-related information.
Some of these solutions, such as fitness trackers, are an extension of the Internet of Things. But because the Internet of Bodies centres on the human body and health, it also raises its own specific set of opportunities and challenges, from privacy issues to legal and ethical questions.
Connecting our bodies
As futuristic as the Internet of Bodies may seem, many people are already connected to it through wearable devices. The smartwatch segment alone has grown into a $13 billion market by 2018, and is projected to increase another 32% to $18 billion by 2021. Smart toothbrushes and even hairbrushes can also let people track patterns in their personal care and behaviour.
For health professionals, the Internet of Bodies opens the gate to a new era of effective monitoring and treatment.
In 2017, the U.S. Federal Drug Administration approved the first use of digital pills in the United States. Digital pills contain tiny, ingestible sensors, as well as medicine. Once swallowed, the sensor is activated in the patient’s stomach and transmits data to their smartphone or other devices.
In 2018, Kaiser Permanente, a healthcare provider in California, started a virtual rehab program for patients recovering from heart attacks. The patients shared their data with their care providers through a smartwatch, allowing for better monitoring and a closer, more continuous relationship between patient and doctor. Thanks to this innovation, the completion rate of the rehab program rose from less than 50% to 87%, accompanied by a fall in the readmission rate and programme cost.
The deluge of data collected through such technologies is advancing our understanding of how human behaviour, lifestyle and environmental conditions affect our health. It has also expanded the notion of healthcare beyond the hospital or surgery and into everyday life. This could prove crucial in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Keeping track of symptoms could help us stop the spread of infection, and quickly detect new cases. Researchers are investigating whether data gathered from smartwatches and similar devices can be used as viral infection alerts by tracking the user’s heart rate and breathing.
At the same time, this complex and evolving technology raises new regulatory challenges.
Have you read?
What counts as health information?
In most countries, strict regulations exist around personal health information such as medical records and blood or tissue samples. However, these conventional regulations often fail to cover the new kind of health data generated through the Internet of Bodies, and the entities gathering and processing this data.
In the United States, the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), which is the major law for health data regulation, applies only to medical providers, health insurers, and their business associations. Its definition of “personal health information” covers only the data held by these entities. This definition is turning out to be inadequate for the era of the Internet of Bodies. Tech companies are now also offering health-related products and services, and gathering data. Margaret Riley, a professor of health law at the University of Virginia, pointed out to me in an interview that HIPPA does not cover the masses of data from consumer wearables, for example.
Another problem is that the current regulations only look at whether the data is sensitive in itself, not whether it can be used to generate sensitive information. For example, the result of a blood test in a hospital will generally be classified as sensitive data, because it reveals private information about your personal health. But today, all sorts of seemingly non-sensitive data can also be used to draw inferences about your health, through data analytics. Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law school, told me in an interview that even data that is not about health at all, such as grocery shopping lists, can be used for such inferences. As a result, conventional regulations may fail to cover data that is sensitive and private, simply because it did not look sensitive before it was processed.
Data risks
Identifying and protecting sensitive data matters, because it can directly affect how we are treated by institutions and other people. With big data analytics, countless day-to-day actions and decisions can ultimately feed into our health profile, which may be created and maintained not just by traditional healthcare providers, but also by tech companies or other entities. Without appropriate laws and regulations, it could also be sold. At the same time, data from the Internet of Bodies can be used to make predictions and inferences that could affect a person’s or group’s access to resources such as healthcare, insurance and employment.
James Dempsey, director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, told me in an interview that this could lead to unfair treatment. He warned of potential discrimination and bias when such data is used for decisions in insurance and employment. The affected people may not even be aware of this.
One solution would be to update the regulations. Sandra Wachter and Brent Mittelstadt, two scholars at the Oxford Internet Institute, suggest that data protection law should focus more on how and why data is processed, and not just on its raw state. They argue for a so-called “right to reasonable inferences”, meaning the right to have your data used only for reasonable, socially acceptable inferences. This would involve setting standards on whether and when inferring certain information from a person’s data, including the state of their present or future health, is socially acceptable or overly invasive.
Practical problems
Apart from the concerns over privacy and sensitivity, there are also a number of practical problems in dealing with the sheer volume of data generated by the Internet of Bodies. The lack of standards around security and data processing makes it difficult to combine data from diverse sources, and use it to advance research. Different countries and institutions are trying to jointly overcome this problem. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and its Standards Association have been working with the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health, as well as universities and businesses among other stakeholders since 2016, to address the security and interoperability issue of connected health.
As the Internet of Bodies spreads into every aspect of our existence, we are facing a range of new challenges. But we also have an unprecedented chance to improve our health and well-being, and save countless lives. During the COVID-19 crisis, using this opportunity and finding solutions to the challenges is a more urgent task than ever. This relies on government agencies and legislative bodies working with the private sector and civil society to create a robust governance framework, and to include inferences in the realm of data protection. Devising technological and regulatory standards for interoperability and security would also be crucial to unleashing the power of the newly available data. The key is to collaborate across borders and sectors to fully realize the enormous benefits of this rapidly advancing technology.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/internet-of-bodies-covid19-recovery-governance-health-data/
