On using provenance data to increase the reliability of ubiquitous computing environments

Ubiquitous computing aims at providing computing functionalities embedded into everyday life. Technologies such as networked sensors, actuators, mobile devices, appliances, and stationary computing infrastructures are intended to support smart services by making use of context information. This information may be only of interest for the moment the service is provided, like location-based services, or collected for later use, e.g., to optimize logistic workflows. In particular in case of spontaneous interactions of components, it becomes difficult to keep track about the provenance of sensor data or even services that are provided in a particular situation. If problems occur, like privacy and security attacks or service failures, this lack of traceable information may decrease the trustworthiness of systems and legal requirements might not be fulfilled properly. In this position paper, we introduce provenance data to increase reliability in ubiquitous computing systems. Hereby, provenance is a summary of the historical information about gathering, collecting, and aggregating data. We demonstrate and motivate the usefulness of the approach and discuss open issues and further research directions by presenting a health-care emergency use case.