Dr. Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar, Chief Researcher at TII’s Secure Systems Research Centre, advocates for privacy-by-design in autonomous systems, ensuring advanced technologies protect personal privacy while enhancing convenience and security.
Imagine waking up to the gentle hum of your personal humanoid assistant preparing breakfast. The ride to work is seamless with a self-driving car that knows your schedule and preferences by heart. At home, a robotic pet greets you at the door, ready to entertain and provide comfort.
This vision of a near-future world is not far off, as autonomous and atomic systems – highly specialized, self-directed robots and AI-driven platforms – rapidly become more mainstream. Alongside these physical robots, we are also seeing a rise in agentic AI, embedded and autonomic systems. These could be smart city traffic lights that self-regulate congestion or data-center infrastructures that self-heal and self-optimize. All these technologies promise convenience, efficiency, and personalization on an unprecedented scale.
Yet, along with these benefits, there is also a fundamental risk: the erosion of personal privacy, which many consider a core human right. The same technologies that make our lives easier also collect and analyze vast amounts of intimate data—our daily habits, preferences, health information, and even emotional states. If not properly safeguarded, these systems risk becoming tools for surveillance, rather than empowerment.
With so much investment currently going into the development of autonomous devices connected to cloud, it’s worth us thinking about how we incorporate them into our lives in safe and useful ways.
Why Our Privacy Matters
Data gathered by autonomous devices is often profoundly personal and their presence – be it a physical robot or an embedded system working silently in the background –means that we are at risk of becoming transparent to the algorithms that power these devices.
Why does this matter?
Privacy underpins our autonomy and dignity, and allows us to think and grow without external influence or judgment. However, aggregated data from microphones, cameras and sensors, can be used to develop detailed user profiles that include our shopping habits, movements, and even emotional states. Predictive systems could then start influencing our decisions through hyper-targeted marketing or manipulative suggestions.
What’s more, compromised or misused data streams can expose sensitive information about our location, health, or personal behaviors. We may also fall victim to function creep, where data collected for one purpose is used for another without our consent.
The passive, always-on nature of many autonomous systems means that data is often collected without explicit, repeated consent. We may not even always have the option to opt out if certain autonomous services – like public transport or background city infrastructure – become ubiquitous.
Privacy by Design
By contrast, incorporating privacy by design can ensure that data protection and privacy are baked into the conceptualization, design, and deployment of emerging technologies from the start.
Key approaches to privacy by design might include data minimization, where collection is on a strictly necessary basis. For instance, an autonomous vehicle need only store route history temporarily, rather than indefinitely.
Transparent consent mechanisms can also provide clear, easy-to-understand explanations of data usage, while “privacy nudges” can help users revisit consent choices periodically.
Decentralizing storage and processing allows data to be processed locally whenever possible, reducing our reliance on the cloud and using secure, peer-to-peer protocols to avoid single points of failure. Meanwhile, end-to-end encryption can ensure secure communication channels for transmitting data, alongside robust authentication to prevent unauthorized data access.
Finally, using ethically-sourced data sets, with strict governance on how data is collected, labeled, and applied, as well as ensuring AI goals align with protecting user interests can help us to avoid manipulative or exploitative behaviors.
Policy Recommendations and Industry Standards
However, building privacy into devices and software is only one piece of the puzzle. Governments and international bodies must also develop or refine privacy regulations specific to autonomous systems. By creating industry standards akin to ISO certifications for privacy and mandating periodic audits, we can help to ensure best practices are followed.
Educating and empowering consumers is equally vital and public awareness campaigns can help to inform users about privacy risks, rights, and data literacy, ultimately promoting ethical design. Organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Privacy International provide educational resources and advocacy that guide consumers in understanding and safeguarding their privacy.
Building Trust: The Human-Robot Relationship
Trust is paramount if we are to reap the full spectrum of benefits that autonomous and autonomic devices can provide, and there are plenty of ways for us to engender this. By making privacy settings intuitive, so they clearly indicate when and how data is collected, users can better understand the scope of monitoring.
We can also build in “privacy modes”, where devices limit or turn off data collection, or incorporate physical or software-based barriers like camera covers or off switches, to give users greater control over being observed and ensure private areas remain private.
Treading the right path
The world of autonomous and robotic systems offers immense promise: safer roads, personalized healthcare, and round-the-clock companionship for those in need. These benefits can simplify life and bring comfort and convenience within everyone’s reach.
Yet, we must not neglect the potential cost to personal privacy – a value deeply intertwined with our human dignity and sense of autonomy. We are at a pivotal juncture where the widespread adoption of these systems can either further erode privacy or redefine boundaries to preserves vital aspects of personal space, dignity, and security.
By embracing privacy by design, transparent data practices, and robust legal and ethical frameworks, we can ensure these transformative technologies empower us rather than expose us. By learning from past data missteps and acting decisively to build comprehensive safeguards, we can create a future where innovation coexists with our fundamental right to privacy – a future in which humans, machines, and self-managing networks truly work together for the greater good.