Embodiment, Privacy and Social Robots: May I Remember You?

As social robots move from the laboratory into public settings the possibility of unwanted intrusion into a user’s personal privacy is magnified. The actual social interaction between human and robot may involve anthropomorphising of the robot by the user, and this may prompt the user to disclose private or sensitive information. To comprehend possible impacts we conducted an exploratory study with a novel privacy measure to understand changes to users’ privacy considerations when interacting with an embodied robotic system vs a disembodied system. In this paper we measure the difference in personal information provided to such systems, and discuss the idea that embodiment may increase users’ risk tolerance and reduce their privacy concerns.