A internet das coisas

: avaliação do grau de aceitação da tecnologia RFID pelo cidadão comum: estudo do caso português

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is, nowadays, a very broad concept, which has a powerful and significant impact on a wide range of areas and sectors of society. It is estimated that its value can reach up to 263 billion USD by 2020. RFID technology, considered to be the core of IoT, assumes a prominent role in management, and the number of organizations that use this technology to streamline processes in their supply chains or to ease the daily life of its users has been steadily increasing. Through our case study, we intend to evaluate the degree of acceptance of the RFID technology by the ordinary citizen in Portugal. For this purpose, we applied the Technology Acceptance Model, adding new dimensions to the base model proposed by David et al (1989), in order to assure its adaptability to the RFID technology. Therefore, whereas the base model of TAM considers solely the perceived utility, the perceived ease of use and the attitudes towards the use of the technology, we have chosen to include six additional variables, based on a literature review. The TAM model was applied through a questionnaire survey performed online, and 1.309 responses were received and analysed. Concerning the results achieved, it stands out the general agreement on the convenience of the RFID technology, which is perceived as comfortable and efficient on the fulfilment of several tasks. The results also reveal that the privacy and security concerns that are recurrently associated with products that contain RFID tags are not considered an obstacle to the future adoption of this technology.

Date of Award	22 Jul 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	António Andrade (Supervisor)