Abstract

Social robots are expected to increasingly appear in private households. The deployment of social robots in the private spheres of humans raises concerns regarding privacy protection. This paper analyses some of the legal implications of using social robots in private households on the basis of four practical use cases. It identifies the privacy concerns associated with each use case and proposes potential technical measures in the form of an initial concept for a companion privacy-app that could resolve or mitigate these concerns, and thereby enhance privacy compliance. The proposed app concept was evaluated in an exploratory study with ten participants. The preliminary results are encouraging and show that this concept has the potential to support the maintenance of privacy and provide control over the user's personal data and the robot's functions.

Highlights

  • Hegel et al [1] defined a social robot as “a robot plus a social interface”, i.e. a robot possessing “social attributes by which an observer judges the robot as a social interaction partner.” It possesses a “social form”, serves a “social function”, and is developed for a specific “social context” [1]

  • We examine how Technical and Organisational Measures (TOMs) could be implemented during the design and development of a social robot in order to meet the data protection requirements laid out in Art. 25 of the GDPR that is concerned with data protection by design and by default

  • We analysed some of the legal implications – regarding privacy and data protection – of using social robots in private households

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Summary

Introduction

Hegel et al [1] defined a social robot as “a robot plus a social interface”, i.e. a robot possessing “social attributes by which an observer judges the robot as a social interaction partner.” It possesses a “social form”, serves a “social function”, and is developed for a specific “social context” [1]. Hegel et al [1] defined a social robot as “a robot plus a social interface”, i.e. a robot possessing “social attributes by which an observer judges the robot as a social interaction partner.”. It possesses a “social form”, serves a “social function”, and is developed for a specific “social context” [1]. A few examples of social robots would include Pepper and NAO (both from SoftBank Robotics Group Corp., Tokyo, Japan), Jibo (Jibo, Inc., Boston, USA), and AIBO (Sony Corporation, Tokyo, Japan). Jibo and AIBO were commercially developed for use in private households to assist, accompany and entertain human beings in their daily lives

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