International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW)

DAMA: Transparenter Datenautonomie Meta-Assistent

The DAMA project aimed to improve the transparency and autonomy of the smart home environment. Users should have an overview of their shared data at all times and be able to control and monitor which data is shared by the various assistants and IoT devices. A smart home meta-assistant was developed in the project for this purpose.
The project was carried out together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) in Stuttgart. The IZEW provided ethical support for the development of the technology by operationalizing the ethical concepts and evaluating the technical implementation.

Link to the project website: https://dama-projekt.de/

Members of the Team

Project Partners

Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation IAO, Stuttgart

Duration

August 2020 – October 2023

Funding

Baden-Württemberg Stiftung

Project Description

Artificial intelligence (AI), used in (voice) assistants and IoT (Internet of Things) devices, among other things, is controlling more and more applications and functions, especially in smart home environments. Users are increasingly losing track of these functions, sensors and the collection and processing of information that is often particularly worthy of protection, especially in the home. In the DAMA project, a meta-assistant was developed that uses artificial intelligence to regulate voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa, smart home devices (e.g. smart refrigerator), but also itself according to personalizable "situation modes". The aim is to strengthen the data autonomy and information transparency of users of smart home applications, regardless of the application.

The aim of DAMA is to:

  • Ensure informational self-determination and increase the data autonomy of users
  • To improve the well-informedness of consent to data processing
  • To develop a context-sensitive regulation of data collection by AI-supported devices and assistants
  • Develop an overall concept for regulation by a meta-assistant
  • And to implement such a meta-assistant as a prototype

We would like to thank the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung for funding.