Delivery robots need consent and trust, not only cameras (Mashable)

Your food delivery robot may have been collecting more than your order.

Two Chicago residents have filed class actions against Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics, alleging the robots scanned customers' faces and hands without consent, linked the data to names and addresses, and used it to train AI systems. One suit alleges remote human operators could watch the deliveries, and the scanning, in real time. Both companies deny the claims, saying the data they collect is navigational. The allegations are untested, but the question they raise is not.

Cameras are not the issue in themselves. A robot on a public street needs sensors to navigate and operate safely, and much of what those sensors capture may be exactly what the companies say it is. That does not settle whether identifiable data is retained or reused for another purpose, or whether consent is required before it is.

Silicon Valley does not appear to be learning the lesson of the backlash against data centres. Robotics manufacturers, like the developers now facing petitions and protests over new campuses, rely on maintaining a social licence to operate. If personal data is being captured without consent or transparency about how it is used, that is a reliable way to lose it.

Physical AI needs training data, and the street is where it lives. When delivery margins are thin, the data a robot collects on the way can start to look like an asset in its own right.

Consumer trust in robotics will be won or lost on the machines already in public space. Illinois law already treats biometric collection as a consent question enforceable by private suit, which is why these cases are being fought there.

Any business deploying cameras on wheels, shelves or shoulders should be able to say exactly what is captured, kept and sold. If you cannot answer that today, a plaintiff will answer it for you.

Source: Mashable, "Delivery robots scan faces and collect customer biometric data, lawsuit alleges" https://lnkd.in/gnC2pqWN

#Privacy #Robotics #Trust