Retail Robot Operations

After discussing and identifying some of the key safety protocols—an integral part of any retail store environment—we now focus on data protection policies. Privacy is a critical concern, as most people would want their personal information, including facial data, to remain secure. At the same time, detection using cameras is an essential aspect of ensuring the safety and protection of people around robots.

To address this challenge, a solution must allow robots to detect individuals in a retail store environment without compromising their privacy. For example, a robot could detect a person’s presence, blur their face region, and display this blurred face on the robot’s interface. This ensures the person’s identity is protected while the robot continues to navigate safely, avoiding possible collisions.

Below are some of the data protection policies identified for this study:

Protocol Name	Summary	Relevance	Future Work/Gaps
IEEE 7000	Ethical guidelines for system design, focusing on privacy, transparency, and data protection in systems interacting with humans.	Guides ethical implementation of robotics, ensuring privacy, transparency, and data management where robots interact with people, especially in retail.	Ethical principles need wider adoption in robotic design, especially in automated decision-making and transparency in human-robot interactions.
GDPR	Regulates data protection and privacy in the EU, providing guidelines for lawful data processing, ensuring consent, transparency, and the right to erasure.	Ensures personal data collected during person detection in retail is handled securely and compliant with privacy regulations.	Further refinement is needed in automated anonymization, real-time monitoring, and adapting to evolving privacy and security requirements.