Domen Vake, dr. Niki Hrovatin and dr. Aleksandar Tošić, InnoRenew CoE researchers, together with dr. Jernej Vičič from the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies at University of Primorska, recently published a new scientific article »Occupancy estimation using indoor air quality data: opportunities and privacy implications« in Energy and Buildings.

The indoor air quality has long been a significant concern due to its health-related risks and potential benefits. This is why air quality sensors are widely used in buildings. Besides measuring different parameters, authors in this paper present a Machine Learning (ML) model that predicts the presence of people in the room with an accuracy as high as 93 %.

Results highlight the privacy concerns related to structural monitoring due to the established ability to infer potentially sensitive information.