Wearable electronics, which includes devices like fitness trackers and smart watches, is a rapidly growing industry that promises to connect the real and digital lives of consumers. As the technology evolves, researchers have been challenged to improve the safety and quality of data transfer to and from wearable electronics. Anupam Joshi, cybersecurity, spoke to Nature about the security concerns raised by this emerging technology.

“With wearables… we truly are entering into a new era, and we have to start thinking of these issues,” Joshi declared. He shared how UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity is working on privacy issues related to wearable technology by creating an app to block out the faces of people who have requested privacy from Google Glass photographs. However, the technology could only reliably provide privacy if manufacturers implement it with dedicated hard ware, Joshi said. “Let’s say that Google was to build in a feature like this into every Google Glass so that it would automatically obey these kinds of commands — then it would work.”