PRIVATAR - Privacy-friendly Mobile Avatars for Sick School Children

In order to promote the integration of acutely and chronically ill school children, the use of mobile robots as avatars at school offers a promising approach. Nevertheless, the robots, through their interactions and sensors, can endanger the different privacy dimensions of different people. This ranges from the physical privacy of schoolmates to the informational privacy of the sick child at home. Such threats and the associated concerns can lead to a lower acceptance or even a rejection of the robots despite their positive effects for the sick child. PRIVATAR therefore aims to provide user-friendly solutions that allow users to better protect their privacy according to their own preferences through novel interactions. This gives them more control over their privacy, which goes far beyond the currently used consent forms. To this end, a holistic approach is being pursued in an interdisciplinary consortium, in which the human factor plays a central role. Together with respective expertise in the fields of robotics, human-robot and human-machine interaction, as well as privacy, solutions adapted to the respective user needs are being researched with the support of associated partners - including university medicine, schools, and parents' associations. With our implemented and evaluated solutions, the sovereignty of those involved in the use of this promising, but still almost untested technology, will be increased.

We will contribute user-friendly robot navigation and human behavior prediction to provide data efficient robot navigation functions in which sensors can be switched on and off according to the user's preferences.