Ethical Issues in Empirical Studies on Smart Home Technologies: A Scoping Review
Agnes Jihae Kim, Taekyung Kim, Jiwon Park, Moon Choi

TL;DR
This paper reviews how ethical issues are addressed in real-world studies of smart home technologies for older adults and people with disabilities.
Contribution
It provides the first empirical analysis of how ethical frameworks are applied in smart home technology studies.
Findings
Privacy was the most frequently addressed ethical issue across 34 of 37 studies.
Few studies explored broader ethical issues like autonomy, trust, bias, and stigma.
Most studies focused on integrated systems and addressed ethics in later stages of technology development.
Abstract
Smart home technology is increasingly employed to enhance independence, participation, and healthcare for older adults and individuals with disabilities. Given its close integration into daily life, ethical concerns surrounding these technologies have been widely discussed. However, limited research has examined how ethical considerations are applied in empirical studies and how existing conceptual models inform their use. This scoping review provides a comprehensive analysis of the integration of ethical frameworks in empirical studies on smart home technologies for these populations. Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, two databases (Web of Science and SCOPUS) were searched, identifying 373 articles after duplicate removal. Using Covidence software, reviewers screened articles in pairs, resulting in 37 eligible studies. The findings indicate that 15 studies focused on smart home…
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Taxonomy
TopicsInnovative Human-Technology Interaction · Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems · Digital Mental Health Interventions
