World renowned futurist Thomas Frey believes one of the key technical innovations we should now pay more attention to is sensors.

Sponsored by Vodafone to speak at a recent local government information management conference, the man billed as Google’s number 1 futurist, believes sensors will soon be as plentiful as specks of dust in our environment.

The founder and leader of the Colorado-based Da Vinci Institute, has been following their use closely.

“The trillion sensor summit was looking at how long before we reach a trillion sensors in the world… they concluded somewhere between 2022 and 2024, and that by 2036 we will hit a hundred trillion sensors in the world” Thomas Frey said.

That’s where a futurist begins his work – by figuring out exactly what that tidal wave of information will bring to light, and how to use it.

For Kiwis trying to work out how sensors in devices will change daily life now, Thomas Frey had plenty of examples.

“There’s a trash can that you can get from Amazon, that when you throw a packet in the bin, it auto-scans what the item is, and re-orders it for you. There’s also a pepper grinder, you put it on the table, it scans your food, and can work out your weight before and after that plate of food” Thomas said.

With so many sensors in devices connected up to the Internet of Things, there have been questions about how to protect the vast amount of information that will be available on everything you touch.

While Thomas Frey is focused on the positive aspects of technology in the future, he is equally clear that security and privacy is a huge concern.

“The problem with privacy is if I know everything about you then I know what your passwords are going to be I know what your bank accounts are going to be, I know what your credit card numbers are, and so then we lose our ability to own things.

“That ownership ability is kind of a foundational thing that we have in our society. The whole economy of the world is based on ownership – and we eventually lose that when we lose our privacy, we lose our identities” He added.

For Thomas Frey the problem is that each new technology somehow manages to pierce the privacy veil of us take for granted.

His solution is that much like the Geneva Convention after World War II, which created rules on how to deal with prisoners of war, the smartest people in the world should convene to set in place an international privacy agreement.

With Thomas Frey’s prediction that in just four years’ time there’ll be 50 billion devices connected to the Internet – it’s clearly a conversation that needs to happen sooner rather than later.