Backcasting Future Human Autonomy and Ethics Protection in Smart Health Environments: A Case Study

Anticipating ethical risks in smart health-IoT (H-IoT) ensures safer solutions that protect human autonomy and privacy from intrusive surveillance. Previous research involving vulnerable groups has not had a significant emphasis on exploring alternative scenarios that prioritize the ethical criteria of human autonomy that can safeguard against external control and surveillance. In this paper, we concentrate on challenges related to the need for ethical protection of human autonomy in Internet of Things-based health-monitoring. More concretely, we present a case study focusing on older adults. We used a participatory ethical foresight methodology, involving various relevant stakeholders, to develop scenarios paired with roadmaps via “backcasting” techniques. Educational capacity, institutional transparency, gaining control over communication channels, and confronting commercial narratives are actionable measures with consensus. To succeed and to ensure adequate actions to bridge the gap between present and future, additional efforts to shift engineers' perspectives toward relevant ethical risks are needed.