Understanding Privacy-friendly Design of Robot Eyes

Eyes have been widely found to play an important role in communicating emotions and intentions for social robots. However, when introducing robots with eyes into people's personal living spaces, it is necessary to consider how the social aspects of a robot impact perceptions of privacy. Specifically, in this paper we explored how the design of a robot's eyes and eye-use behavior impacts use perception of privacy and related concerns. We developed a prototype robot with display-based eyes and investigated the impacts on perceptions of privacy concerns living with the robot. Our findings indicated that robot eye design does impact perceptions of privacy concerns, with the unexpected result of robots whose eyes that stay always on garnering lower concerns than eyes that close or turn off (the display) just before a person leaves. This result offer valuable insights for robot development and present empirical evidence on the influence of robot eye design on user privacy concerns.