You might have heard of the copyright law that states data ownership goes to the person who created the data. In this case, data refers to intellectual properties. But can the same definition be applied to smart devices all connected to the Internet? Data moves through many things before and after it is processed. So exactly who owns the machine-generated IoT data? Does the end-user own the IoT data collected by smart devices that you use? Or does the company that created the single board has rights over the data? Does the operating system on the single board tell you that they’ll own the data passing through that smart device (In their “Terms and Conditions”) Does the board manufacturer own it? Among others who can lay claim to data collected by smart devices are the software developers who program the smart devices. This is confusing and as yet, has no clear guidelines as to who owns IoT data. This is the person using different smart devices. Since they are smart devices, they are all connected to the Internet. End-users can access these devices using the related app on their smartphones or directly by punching keys on smart devices. Almost all of the data on a network is created by the end-user. If we applied the copyright law to all this, the end-user would be the IoT data owner. Unfortunately, copyright law does not yet consider smart devices’ data. There are no laws for the IoT devices at the time of writing this article (September 29, 2019). Entities that manufacture smart devices (single board micro-computers that can take certain actions when something happens) are also contenders for data obtained by the devices. They have created the micro-computers and hence their claim to the data. However, it is not feasible to give away one’s rights (end users) to someone else (the manufacturers) as we don’t know where the data will be stored and how will it be used. But there is not much an end-user can do if the hardware makers stake their claim to data without even asking for such permissions. This posting is somewhat detailed, for comprehensive details visit OUR FORUM.