A Hardware-Anchored Privacy Middleware for PII Sharing Across Heterogeneous Embedded Consumer Devices

TL;DR

This paper presents UDSS, a middleware framework for secure, privacy-preserving PII sharing across heterogeneous consumer devices, reducing onboarding friction and data exposure risks.

Contribution

It introduces a device-centric, context-aware privacy middleware with a tiered access model for PII management in IoT environments.

Findings

Reduces user onboarding latency by 65%.

Measurably decreases PII over-exposure risk.

Provides a standardized identity management approach for heterogeneous devices.

Abstract

The rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart home ecosystems has led to a fragmented landscape of user data management across consumer electronics (CE) such as Smart TVs, gaming consoles, and set-top boxes. Current onboarding processes on these devices are characterized by high friction due to manual data entry and opaque data-sharing practices. This paper introduces the User Data Sharing System (UDSS), a platform-agnostic framework designed to facilitate secure, privacy-first PII (Personally Identifiable Information) exchange between device platforms and third-party applications. Our system implements a Contextual Scope Enforcement (CSE) mechanism that programmatically restricts data exposure based on user intent - specifically distinguishing between Sign-In and Sign-Up workflows. Unlike cloud-anchored identity standards such as FIDO2/WebAuthn, UDSS is designed for shared, device-centric CE environments where persistent user-to-device binding cannot be assumed. We further propose a tiered access model that balances developer needs with regulatory compliance (GDPR/CCPA). A proof-of-concept implementation on a reference ARMv8 Linux-based middleware demonstrates that UDSS reduces user onboarding latency by 65% and measurably reduces PII over-exposure risk through protocol-enforced data minimization. This framework provides a standardized approach to identity management in the heterogeneous CE market.