5G's Pros and Cons, and the Risk to Data Privacy

Evaluating the Strengths and Weaknesses of 5G Technology Implementation Associated with Data Privacy

Background

As technology has been rapidly advancing, the Internet is becoming the primary source of connection between humans across businesses, governments and public services. To fulfil the greater demand from users, a fifth generation of mobile wireless network (5G) has been designed in the last couple of years to provide extremely fast speed, broader bandwidth for more device connection, and to reduce connection latency (Shankaranarayanan & Ghosh, 2017). However, it has been argued that the 5G implementation provides a significant threat to privacy due to its newly design technology (Aiqing & Xiaodong, 2017). This paper will provide an overview of 5G wireless network, and evaluate the opportunities and challenges of its implementation.

5G has been innovated to anticipate the tremendous growth of smart devices and technologies communicating via the Internet. It has been estimated that by 2020 the number of smart devices used globally is 200 times those used in 2010, and this amount of the connectivity will not be able to be supported by 4G technology (Al-Dulaimi, Wang, & I, 2018). Because of its speed, bandwidth and less latency, 5G has been considered the world cutting-edge technology advancement being awaited by giant tech companies moving to toward the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT has been defined as the expansion of the Internet to accommodate, explicitly or implicitly, all electronic devices’ and components’ connection and communication (Saleh & Bouhaï, 2017).

The Benefits of 5G

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is one of the aspects that will benefit from the 5G technology. The IIoT plays a significant role in current shifting of industrial revolution – from Industries 3.0 to 4.0. This transformation can be established by employing self-controlled smart systems and services via the Internet or cloud service to collect, and process data from manufacturing production lines (production, inventory, warehouse) and to monitor the industrial output. Industries 4.0 will be able to manage flexible production based on consumer demands ,and provide instant monitoring and decision making for manufacturing industries (Sendler, 2018). A study has shown that in order to perform real-time monitoring of all operations and equipment in an advanced manufacturing industry, it requires a higher communication rate of at least 25 megabit per second of wireless network connection (Cheng, Chen, Tao, & Lin, 2018). By comparing current speed provided by 4G, Liyanage, Ahmad, Abro, Gurtov, and Ylianttila (2018) have highlighted that 5G network could provide 100 times better communication speed than 4G, which can provide only approximately 10 megabit per second speed. Thus, the higher communication rate offered by 5G will fulfil that requirement demanded by the latest industrial revolution and IIoT.

Another positive influential aspect of 5G is improvement of healthcare services. The provision of most accurate remote-control access between human and devices can allow doctors and health experts to work from a distance because of the ultra-low latency introduced by 5G. It reduces the end-to-end remote control lag duration to 1 millisecond which is 50 times shorter compared to the 4G network (Liyanage et al., 2018). Research conducted on cognitive systems for healthcare has proposed that remote surgery could be performed by using the display and tactile sensing devices via the 5G network since surgeons can obtain real-time information and circumstances of the patient (Chen, Yang, Yixue, Mao, & Hwang, 2017). In April 2019, distant heart surgery was performed in Guangdong, China directed by a specialist 400 kilometres away from the surgery room by using 4k ultra-high deification conference using 5G (Ye, 2019). Ye also pointed out another surgery case was also occurred in Beijing. The surgery was completed using surgical robot by a neurosurgeon working at Hainan, China to implant a deep-brain stimulation. As a result, it is proved that 5G’s ultra-low latency can improve healthcare service by allowing remote support and from distant available expertise.

Moreover, 5G will also contribute to promoting modern urbanisation, such as the smart city. A smart city is considered to include, but not limit to, smart public safety and environment monitoring, smart buildings and smart mobility. This domain will require huge data collection from smart devices, sensors, geographical trackers, as well as surveillance system such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), radars and satellite (Saleh & Bouhaï, 2017). This massive data needs to be collected spontaneously and wirelessly for analysis in order to produce an on time and reliable outcome. For example, traffic lights could automatically switch depending on the real-time analysis of data gathered from the road cameras to smoothen the traffic congestion. This process can be supported by the high speed and broad range of connections given by 5G wireless network.

The Challanges of 5G

However, at the same time while 5G is a dream come true of the IoT, security weaknesses and other unforeseen failures are imposed by the implementation of the technology. There are some characteristics of security challenges and loopholes that are posed a threat to data privacy. Firstly, 5G mobile wireless network increases the magnitude of risk landscape comparing to the previous generations. Extensive use of 5G is generating the complete environment of the IoT, including smart city, smart home, eGovernment, eHealth, and financial technology some of which have been explained earlier. Also, it brings hacker’s motivations in attempting to break through the network because of more available vulnerabilities of newly connected platforms including new smart devices, services and systems (Liyanage et al., 2018). Another characteristic of the 5G network is the uncertain security standards. The existing security mechanism developed in the 4G network is not so applicable for 5G’s newly advanced infrastructure (Ji et al., 2018). Because 5G’s architecture consists of new hardware, open source software platforms and ununified automated source management, it raise many other unpredicted threats within the technology.

In addition, the more devices are used and connected to IoT, the greater amount of user private data is collected, including personal data, geographical location, and personal identity from the services users are utilising. Threats related to privacy are classified into two categories. One of those is data gathered and used by the companies that users are associated with. For instance, when users register on a mobile application, it will often request permission from the users to access phone location or make use the content and information created on that application by the users. The information might be used by the companies for product invention or for other business strategy purposes which users might have not been aware of. Another category of the privacy invasion is the use of information breach from hacking users’ personal devices or companies’ system servers. This threat might provide more vital damages regarding some personal information such as person identity, financial and health information are more value able and targeted by hackers. Thus, given the opportunities and extent of sensitive data exposure, 5G is providing a contestable trade-off regarding the privacy disclosure.

The Response to the Challenges

In responding to the concern of the security weakness imposed on data privacy, many studies have been conducted. International Telecommunication Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) has provided security recommendations to address the network security aspects (Ji et al., 2018). It focuses on providing security mechanisms to protect network security and users against the threats to security. This will probably address the 5G new network architecture implementation mentioned earlier as it contains significant loopholes and unforeseen consequences. Ji et al. (2018) also emphasises that “5G Evolved Security Module” – a well-defined security strategy and plan, and tools and processes needed to respond to any attack case detected, should be developed. Additionally, to deal with the personal privacy of individuals, device users should be skeptical while using drives. Device passcode should be complex and not easily to be guessed, and device auto-lock screens should be set. While applications installed and used in the mobile and other smart devices should be assessed for its genuine use, timely update of the devices’ firmware or operating system should be performed. Based on the stated counter measurements to the weakness of 5G security characteristics and the exposure of user privacy, these might highly likely reduce threat that is involved to user data privacy.

In conclusion, 5G mobile wireless networks are offering boundless opportunities toward the Internet of Things phenomenon including building smart manufacturing industries, enhancing healthcare services and promoting smart cities through its extensive features which overcome previous generations of mobile wireless network. However, the embedded threats to data privacy cannot be avoided due to the new technology flaws and hacktivists’ advanced motivations. Proper security plans and measurements need to be in place to ensure that while experiencing the enjoyment of new technology, users can control and protect their data and privacy.

References

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