Strip the marketing and a home robot is a mobile sensor platform: cameras that see everything, microphones that hear everything, and a map of your home more detailed than your architect’s. That can be fine — appliances have earned trust before — but only after the seven questions get real answers.
The checklist
1. What sensors run, and when? Pass: sensors off means demonstrably off, with a hardware indicator. Fail: “always listening for wake words” with no physical shutter.
2. Where does footage live? Pass: on-device processing by default, cloud only with explicit opt-in. Fail: everything streams to servers as a condition of function.
3. How long is data kept? Pass: a number, in writing. Fail: “as long as needed to improve our services.”
4. Who can view through the robot? Teleoperators, support staff, “safety reviewers”? Pass: named roles, session logs you can read, an unmistakable in-home indicator. (Our teleoperation explainer covers why this one is existential.)
5. Is your home map yours? Pass: exportable, deletable, never sold. Fail: silence in the privacy policy — silence means no.
6. What happens at cancellation? Pass: full data deletion on request, confirmed. Fail: perpetual licenses to “derived data.”
7. What’s the breach history and bounty? Companies that pay hackers to find holes patch them; companies that threaten researchers hide them.
The standard to hold
Any company shipping cameras into bedrooms owes you crisp written answers to all seven. Two or more fails: waitlist, don’t buy — the category is young enough that voting with your deposit still shapes it. We grade privacy posture alongside capability in every WhichBot review.