Human-data interaction and user rights at the personal robot era

Abstract

In this paper, we explore issues related to privacy, data protection, and Intellectual Property rights around personal and collaborative robots. This is a discussion on personal and non-personal data in the context of robot privacy, specifically focused in the EU jurisdiction. This work is, however, not limited to such theoretic and legal constructs as it adds a new practical dimension in this discussion. The paper presents some initial findings of a comparative study of the publicly available privacy policies and data governance schemes for some of the widest used robots. The strategies of robotic companies are analysed based on three factors: access of the company to personal data collected by the robot, sharing personal data with third parties and users’ rights regarding derivative work. This analysis makes an interesting observation; robots that can support more sophisticated levels of user interaction seem to offer the most limited privacy and user rights terms. The scope of this work is to present both the legal and the practical dimensions to the debate of handling user data and make a valuable contribution to the field of privacy-sensitive robotics.