CHANCES are, some of the Christmas presents we buy or receive this year will use some form of smart technology.

As a society, we have been buying gifts in the form of gadgets and gizmos for decades. Games consoles, DIY equipment, remote control cars, TVs and stereos have all been common presents opened up in countless homes in Glasgow on Christmas morning.

The trend will continue this year, with gifts including smart toothbrushes, virtual reality headsets, drones, smart watches, wireless headphones and self-lacing trainers! According to data analytics company GlobalData, this new “wearable tech” industry is projected to be worth a staggering $54 billion by 2023!

Technology works best when it adds value to people’s lives. The commercial success of technology, at least in the case of these new Christmas gadgets, can increase greatly if they can be a source of fun and entertainment.

What is becoming clear is that smart tech is becoming more and more intertwined with our daily lives. Many of us will now own a smartwatch such as a Fitbit that supports us with health and fitness goals and we are now seeing the healthcare industry make use of this technology by monitoring patients. These industry-standard wearables come with sensors, artificial intelligence and big data to remotely monitor patients and support the diagnosis of illnesses.

As is so often the case, new technologies and industries bring with them new challenges. As smart tech becomes more prevalent, we must become more aware of the potential pitfalls and know how to combat any threats associated with being continuously connected to the internet.

Cyber criminals can do serious damage. In 2017, NHS England cancelled an estimated 7,000 appointments and operations because of malicious computer infections, known as a ransomware, which threatened to block computer access until a ransom was paid.

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This incident should be a wakeup call and it is naïve to think that hackers and cyber vandals only target wealthy corporations. Scots now spend £38 billion a year using online transactions, so households in Glasgow and throughout the country really need to consider how they can best protect their online data.

For these reasons, Glasgow Science Centre has become a host venue for Cyber Scotland Week in February. Throughout the week-long event, we will be inviting schools to take part in a series of workshop where they can learn the skills used by “ethical hackers” who test the vulnerability of organisations’ systems.

There will also be an opportunity to speak to Police Scotland about what the front line of cyber security looks like.

The personal information that hackers seek to access is no longer limited to financial details. Indoor and outdoor security cameras, including video doorbells, are becoming more and more common in our homes.

People buy this technology to keep their homes and families safe, but flaws recently uncovered in the system of a well-known smart doorbell manufacturer meant that usernames and passwords were readily available for hackers to access.

In addition, privacy campaigners in the US have raised concerns about police being able to access video doorbells for surveillance purposes. These are issues that we should expect to see debated throughout 2020, with San Francisco putting a pause on live facial recognition being rolled out across the city earlier this year.

On this side of the Atlantic, Westminster’s science and technology committee cited issues with the “effectiveness of and biases within the technology”.

A few short months ago, a craze had emerged were people were aging and de-aging themselves on mobile phones with FaceApp. Few of us considered what happened to those images before it was reported that the Russian company were storing our pictures on its servers.

If I am lucky enough to receive some kind of new tech gadget this Christmas, I know I won’t be alone in skipping through the instructions and terms and conditions. Given what lies ahead in terms of the development of smart technology, maybe a good New Year’s resolution would be to reconsider this approach and to get a better understanding of personal data and privacy.