The explosion of the phenomenon of the Internet of Things and the increasing diffusion of smart living technologies in all the layers of our society - from houses to hospitals, from cities to critical infrastructures such as energy grids - clearly demonstrates the viability and the advantages of a fully interconnected vision of a smart world. Technological advances such as the use of open data, big data, blockchain and sensor development in the Internet of Everything are rapidly changing the societal landscape, raising the question of how to guarantee, in a homogeneous way, the preservation of privacy and other human rights in a completely heterogeneous and cross-sectoral world, without impairing the potentialities of the new smart technologies such as the Internet of Things and big data. The 2017 IFIP Summer School on Privacy and Identity Management was dedicated to the exploration of technical, legal and societal issues relating to the smart revolution. This chapter provides an introduction to the exciting work presented at the summer school.