• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, February 1, 2016

Data wants to be free.

Not as in there not being a financial cost, but more in terms of being accessible to many.

But not all entities want data to be free, for a host of reasons.

The U.S. government has since the early Snowden days a few years back suggested that their ability to track suspects using technology is under threat because of encryption by tech companies.

But a new study just out from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University says that is not the case.

The study, Don’t Panic; Making Progress on the Going Dark Debate, concludes that end-to-end encryption and other technological features for obscuring user data are unlikely to be adopted by all companies, since many of those companies rely on access to user data for revenue streams, including user data recovery if a password is forgotten.

But the larger impact is seen coming from the impact of The Internet of Things.

Networked sensors growing exponentially create the potential to drastically change surveillance.

“The still images, video and audio captured by these devices may enable real-time intercept and recording with after-the-fact access,” states the report. “An inability to monitor an encrypted channel could be mitigated by the ability to monitor from afar a person through a different channel.”

The report suggests that video sensors on IoT devices will open up numerous avenues for governments to demand access to real-time and recorded communications.

It points out that voice recognition in devices such as TVs allows a third party to capture spoken words, whether intended or not, and notes that the future will be even more laden with sensors that can be commandeered for law enforcement surveillance.

In the understatement-of-the-year department, the report concludes: “The Internet of Things raises new and difficult questions about privacy over the long term.”

Whatever the ultimate outcome, the ripple effects of what is allowed to be tracked will hit marketing in a big way.