The Impact of Domestic Robots on Privacy and Data Protection, and the Troubles with Legal Regulation by Design

The paper examines a particular class of robotic applications, i.e. “domestic robots,” in order to stress that such robots will likely affect current legal frameworks of privacy and data protection. Since most of these machines act, new responsibilities of humans for the behaviour of others should be expected in the legal field. More particularly, focus is on the protection of people’s “opaqueness” and the transparency with which domestic robots should collect, process, and make use of personal data. Whilst the aim of the law to govern the process of technological innovation concerns here the regulation of producers and designers of robots through specific sets of norms, or the regulation of users behaviour through the design of their robots, three issues are fated to remain open. They concern: (i) a new expectation of privacy; (ii) the realignment of the traditional distinction between data processors and data controllers; and, (iii) a novel set of challenges to the principle of privacy by design. Although the claim and goal of lawmakers will probably revolve around the protection of individuals against every harm, e.g. psychological problems related to the interaction with domestic robots and the processing of third parties’ information, the intent to embed normative constraints into the internal control architecture of such artificial agents entails a major risk. If there is no need to humanize our robotic applications, we should not robotize human life either.