Social robots and future crime: a scoping literature review

Abstract Purpose Social robots are set to permeate every area of our lives from childhood, well into our old age—from education, policing, and entertainment, to healthcare. Ensuring that their deployment happens in a safe and secure way requires a firm understanding of the broad scope of crime and security threats that social robots may facilitate. Methods We conducted a scoping literature review to provide an overview of the crime and security threats related to social robots, and potential countermeasures. Results We identified 18 distinct crime threats and 17 possible countermeasures described across 388 academic and non-academic articles from any discipline. The crime threats ranged from fraud and trespassing, to espionage and abuse towards robots. Countermeasure themes included establishing social robot rights and many technological adaptations. Conclusions Stakeholders in the social robotics domain are encouraged to use these findings to pre-empt future crime risks related to social robots. Open questions include whether to establish robot rights in the case of threats against robots, whom to hold liable in crime scenarios involving (semi-)autonomous decisions by the robot’s software, and how to apply situational crime prevention measures in social robot’s unique cyber-physical space.