Privacy & data handling

tBot is deployed in public and semi-public venues (malls, campuses, hospitals, and similar spaces) to meet visitors, answer questions, and guide them to a destination. To do that, it processes:

• Camera video, in real time. Used to detect that a person is present and approaching, and to navigate around them and other obstacles. This runs to operate the robot in the moment.
• Voice, during a conversation. Captured only while a visitor is actively talking with tBot, to understand the question being asked and give a spoken answer.
• Visitor feedback, given voluntarily inside a conversation. If a visitor comments on the venue or the experience, that comment is treated as feedback for the venue operator, not as a survey response tied to their identity.

• We do not build an identity profile of visitors, and tBot does not perform facial recognition to identify who a person is, only that a person is present.
• We do not sell visitor data to third parties.
• We do not use conversation content for advertising.

This is the part of the policy still being finalised with the venues we deploy to, and is marked here as an open item rather than a settled fact: how long video and audio are retained, where processing happens, and how long any stored feedback is kept before deletion. Anyone reading a public version of this policy should get a firm, specific answer to those questions before we claim one here.

If you have interacted with tBot at a venue in India, you have the right to ask what data was collected about that interaction, to ask for it to be corrected, and to ask for it to be deleted, subject to the venue's own retention needs (for example, a safety incident record). To make a request, contact altrurobotics@gmail.com. Once this policy is finalised, this section should also name a specific grievance officer, as the DPDP Act requires.

Separately from the robot: this website's contact form sends the details you submit (name, email, organization, and message) directly to us by email to respond to your enquiry. We do not add you to a mailing list from that form.

For any question about this policy or a request about your data, write to altrurobotics@gmail.com.