'What if someone steals my face?'

Context's Jonathan Wagstaff muses on a question posed by a delegate at the recent Smart Home security event

"What if someone steals my face?" asked a delegate at a Smart Home security event I attended recently, organised jointly by the Smart Homes and Buildings Association, Knowledge Transfer Network, and CONTEXT.

"Someone could take a 3D scan of my face, then print a 3D copy!"

As a wave of fear swept the conference room, another delegate chipped in: "A criminal could force your face up to the scanner against your will. There isn't the same problem with pins and passwords".

All of this is possible, but a memory I have of a friend being frog-marched at gunpoint through downtown Baltimore to an ATM by a local thug who then extracted his PIN and several hundred dollars, shows that very few security systems are fail-safe. Technophobia must be part of the zeitgeist at the moment: even the evil master-plan of Spectre in the recent film of the same name involved a conspiracy to hack all the world's connected devices.

Consumers have fair reason to worry about data breaches and theft of monies. RBS revealed earlier this month that between January and September 2015, 5,000 customers were scammed with an average loss of £13,000, and that only 30 percent of these victims had their money returned. Being wise to the risks, many banks have moved responsibility for transactions on to customers in their terms and conditions. As one security analyst pointed out to me after the event, the plurality of platforms and protocols for the Smart Home presents a greater security challenge for the channel. Put simply, the fewer platforms and protocols which are used, the more time the good guys can dedicate to each in turn reducing their vulnerability.

As many savvy retailers know, the odd thing about consumers is that they will let many risks slide if they trust and love a certain brand. Many consumers still bank online and most probably ignore reading the terms and conditions which set out their liabilities in black-and-white. Apple's famously unread iTunes terms and conditions have spawned an entire episode of South Park, where a character is subjected to medical experiments which they unwittingly agree to after skipping through the small-print. There are numerous examples of brands which have been hit by data-breaches and that have only caused minimal and short-term damage to sales, such as Sony's PlayStation Network.

In addition to security concerns, another key obstacle for Smart Home technology is consumer understanding and awareness. A recent consumer survey by CONTEXT showed that in the UK 38 percent of those sampled had heard of the 'Smart Home'. In terms of where they had heard of the 'Smart Home', the leading answer for all countries was 'In a retail store', with Germany highest at 39 percent, and trailed by the UK at 29 percent. It is also worth noting that sales of Smart Home products through distribution as tracked by CONTEXT are largest in Germany, again followed by the UK.

Some German companies are already wise to the power of brands, coupled with consumer education in the retail environment. Deutsche Telekom's Smart Home offering is a great example of harnessing trusted brand partners, and pursuing a concerted education project which has included the hiring of cinemas to train retailers en masse. If the UK channel is serious about a breakthrough for Smart Home products and overcoming public fear, following Germany's example would be a place to good start.

Jonathan Wagstaff is country manager UK & IE at CONTEXT