Challenges of IoT in Smart Cities: Privacy, Security, Heterogeneity, Reliability, Legal and Social Aspects, Big Data, and Sensor Networks

Running head: INTERNET OF THINGS FOR SMART CITIES
Internet Of Things For Smart Cities
[Name of the Student]
[Name of the University]
[Author note]

1INTERNET OF THINGS FOR SMART CITIES
Abstract
This paper is to focuses on the challenges of IOT in smart cities. The document is prepared in
such a way so that the readers can know about the functionalities internet of things in a smart
city in a detailed way. The use of internet of things is increasing every day; we are using IoT
in a wide range of activities due to its effectiveness and reliability. The increasing application
of the internet of things is the main reasons behind the challenges which are being faced by
the organisations that are incorporating this technology. Due to its wide acceptance different
unethical issue are associated with this technology. This report highlights all the major
problems of an IoT based smart city.

2INTERNET OF THINGS FOR SMART CITIES
Introduction
The prime objective of this report is to focus on the challenges of the application of
internet of things in smart cities. The four different types of modules of a smart city where
internet of things is applied are sensing, networking, analysis and control (Mohanty, Choppali
& Kougianos, 2016). The internet of things is used to connect all the possible physical
objects, this technology allows to sense different sorts of phenomena and control them in an
effective way (Scuotto, Ferraris & Bresciani, 2016). The different challenging areas where
smart cities are applied are smart buildings, smart energy grids, smart automobiles, water
distribution lines, environmental monitoring, wearable sensors, protection of security and
privacy of citizens of the smart city (Sun et al., 2016). This report will be focussing on the
different types of issues and challenges faced by the smart cities using internet of things
(Rathore et al., 2016).
Background of applications of IoT in smart city
The IOT or the internet of things can be defined as an eco-system that connects
physical subsystems or objects like the electrical devices, home appliance and other such
devices connected and operated through the internet. With the help of the Internet of things
one can control anything which can be connected to the internet and use it with the help of
the internet. In the modern generation this is one of the major development that is taking
place, using this can control anything without manual intervention. The IOT amalgamation
with cities called the smart cities is one of the major development that is taking place. This
embedded technology can help the government of a city to monitor each and every thing in a
proper manner and thus making use of the common systems very much user friendly. One of
the major advantage of this is security options. When things are connected to the sources of
internet the user can control everything remotely hence decreasing the chances of nay errors.

3INTERNET OF THINGS FOR SMART CITIES
As of the government is considered it can help in the proper observations of all the aspects of
the society like the hospitals, police stations, power supply stations, housing complexes and
other such common aspects. In other words it can be said that it can help in observing,
identifying and understanding a situation without human help that is autonomously. This is
one of the revolutionary idea that is been induced by many of the countries in the world.
Smart
homes
Smart
parking
lot
Healthcar
e industry
Weather
and water
systems
Transport
managem
ent
system
Environme
ntal
pollution
Surveilla
nce
systems
Demand
response
Car
managem
ent
Tracking Weather
condition
Camera
monitoring
Greenhouse
gas
monitoring
Violence
detection
Fire
detection
technolog
y
Departure
and
arrival of
automobil
es
Identificat
ion of
issues
Water
quality
Environme
nt
monitoring
Energy
efficiency
monitoring
Public
place
monitorin
g
Temperat
ure
controllin
g systems
Mobile
ticketing
Data
gathering
Water
leakage
Travel
scheduling Renewable
energy
usage
People
and object
tracking
Security
systems
Environm
ent
monitorin
g
Sensing Water
level
Traffic
jam
reduction
Air quality
monitoring
CCTV
Social
network
supportin
g systems
Traffic
congestio
n control
Equipmen
t used in
operation
theatres
Water
contaminat
ion
Assisted
driving
Noise
pollution
monitoring
Traffic
Police
Table 2: IOT application in a smart city
Created by the author

4INTERNET OF THINGS FOR SMART CITIES
Challenges of IoT in smart cities
o Privacy and Security: It is a foremost point of discussion in the IoT based systems in
a smart city (Höller et al., 2014). Systems using IoT are vulnerable to significant
vulnerabilities such as data leakage, multitenancy, cross side scripting and side
channels, effective measures should be taken to cope up with those issues (Boulos &
Al-Shorbaji, 2014). Maintenance of the security of those advanced systems is also an
important parameter regarding the usage of IoT in smart cities as the attackers are
always using advanced improvised techniques in the cyber-attacks (Fortino &
Trunfio, 2014).
o Heterogeneity: This is one of the major challenges of smart cities (Avijit &
Chinnaiyan, 2018). Effective procurement report is very much important for
maximum utilization of the IoT based systems (Stankovic, 2014).
o Reliability: Organisations involving a huge amount of smart systems are prone to
reliability issues which should be taken special care of by the organisations using the
technology (Botta et al., 2016).
o Legal and social aspects: The service provided by different kinds of IoT based
system are based on different national and international laws which are needed to be
followed in order to be completely secure from the external attacks (Jalali, El-Khatib
& McGregor, 2015).
o Big data: This is the biggest challenges of an IoT based smart city (Gonzalez &
Rosillo, 2015). The service provided by the IoT based system should be monitored as
much as possible as essential information is transmitted to open source networks
which can be easily hacked by professional hackers (Ejaz et al., 2017).

5INTERNET OF THINGS FOR SMART CITIES
o Sensor networks: All the IOT based systems uses the sensor networks to enable the
systems for different types of activities such as measuring, interfering, understanding
environmental indexes (Zanella et al., 2014).
o DR barriers: There are different kinds of barriers which can have an impact on the
IoT based systems (Li, Da Xu & Zhao, 2015). The three key set categories of DR
barriers are as followings:
 Framework barriers: The applications of framework barriers are in the
suitable electricity market, regulation and policies of organizations and
communication limits (Centenaro et al., 2016).
 Providers barriers: It includes convincing the customers and making
incentives for effective function of the advanced IoT based system in a smart
city (Alur et al., 2016).
 Customer barriers: The issues related with customers regarding IoT are lack
of knowledge and huge investment required (Bonomi et al., 2014).
Problems of IoT in smart cities
o Hacker attacks: There are different types of problems in IoT based smart city (Hui,
Sherratt & Sánchez, 2017). Different types of cyber-attacks lead to data loss for the
organisations, use of malicious software’s, phishing attacks are very much harmful
and one of the key problems of a smart city (Wang et al., 2016).
o Data ownership risk: Storage of data in local server or in cloud server has numerous
kinds of issues associated with smart cities (Jin et al., 2014). A centralized control
system which used for data storing application processing and application storage
have numerous issues related to the internet of technology as any single fault may
lead to entire system failure (Ranjan, 2016).