Effects of privacy warning on the intention to disclose personal information during interaction with a robot in public spaces

Abstract

Social robots in public spaces can potentially gather personal data. This leads to privacy concerns and prompts users to consider whether to disclose their information to the robot during interaction with the robot. This paper aims to explore the effects of privacy warnings on people’s intentions to disclose their personal information and their actual disclosure when interacting with a robot in public spaces. We propose a model to estimate individuals’ disclosure intentions toward a robot and evaluate the impact of privacy warnings during interaction. We conducted an experiment with more than 100 participants interacting with a robot to assess the proposed model. Our results indicate that factors such as risk beliefs, trusting beliefs, perceived enjoyment, and social influence significantly influence individuals’ intentions to disclose information. In general, a robot equipped with privacy warnings receives greater acceptance than a robot without privacy warnings, and participants who receive warnings disclose more low-privacy information. However, there is no significant difference in disclosure between participants who interacted with a robot with privacy warnings and those who interacted with a robot without privacy warnings. Overall, disclosure behavior does not significantly differ between the two groups, suggesting that privacy warnings do not effectively reduce disclosure information.

Postprint (published version)