Dogs Go Pods: Context-dependent Access Control Rules for Sharing Personal Data of Humans and Pets

To advance self-determined data sharing, we present a novel paradigm for context-dependent access control for Solid, a specification for decentralized data stores (Pods) for secure sharing of personal data. Our approach enables dynamic, real-time updates to data access rights based on contextual information such as location, proximity, and behavior. Using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons and a mobile application, we demonstrate our contribution in a pet ownership scenario, where a BLE-enabled dog collar manages access to a dog’s data Pod. For example, the owner’s contact details become publicly accessible if the pet runs away; access to vaccination records are made available to customs officials when the dog crosses a country border; and additional contact information for arranging play dates is made available to other dog owners when two dogs interact frequently. Our demonstrator highlights the potential of context-dependent access control rules to enhance data privacy in everyday IoT environments, taking advantage of contextual triggers that can reduce end-user complexity. We discuss applications beyond pet ownership and outline future work to refine our system’s usability and performance.

David Elia Egon Seger, Kimberly Garcia, Jannis Strecker-Bischoff, and Simon Mayer. 2025. Dogs Go Pods: Context-dependent Access Control Rules for Sharing Personal Data of Humans and Pets. In Companion of the the 2025 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp Companion ’25), October 12–16, 2025, Espoo, Finland. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 5 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3714394.3754368