I guess it goes without saying that for humans to interact with humanoid robots is a whole lot easier and emotionally involving compared to a regular, traditional robot that we know it as. Having said that, it seems that researchers from Oxford are working to embed privacy features in humanoid robots as part of an exercise to explore the various methods that robots have privacy embedded into their design so that whatever private and confidential information that has been stored within will not be hacked or relayed to someone else with a nefarious purpose.
Dr. Ian Brown, Associate Director of Oxford University’s Cyber Security Centre and Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, is the one behind this particular effort to embed privacy in the design of robots. Considering how robots are able to transmit as well as record all that they see and hear (without forgetting, unlike us humans), Brown’s research will hopefully stumble upon a way to prevent robots from unnecessarily revealing the identities of the people whom they have recorded or interacted with throughout the day.
It makes perfect sense, otherwise such robots would be the perfect fodder for intelligence gathering agencies, don’t you think so? It is all about maintaining the balance of having an easier life without losing control over our private information.