Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent testimony in Congress shone a bright light on data privacy issues. In reality, the issues have been there for a long time, and while Facebook is a major player with an enormous amount of personal data, unfortunately, there’s more to worry about.

In this age of the Internet of Things (IoT), there are billions of devices connected to the Internet. Whether we realize it or not, most of them are collecting personal information and activity that ends up in the cloud. The trend to mobile apps as an interface of choice for home automation control brings our industry into this world.

Should we be worried? From a security standpoint, yes – but there are steps to take to mitigate risk. From a privacy standpoint, awareness of where your data is going and how it’s being used is an important consideration.

Let’s consider some security and privacy issues that may or may not be top of mind for you in the crush of the daily business – but that deserve your attention.

Over a decade ago, an executive from one of the top home automation brands asked to meet with me at CEDIA. Meetings like this were fairly common, as PanTech Design would handle a lot of out-of-the-box programming projects. But that wasn’t why the executive had called the meeting. No, he had the express purpose of telling me to “brush up my resume because they were going to put me out of a job.”

I looked him dead in the eye and said “you’re absolutely wrong. The only way to get rid of programming is through a lot of programming. But good luck trying!”