A cyber bot or chatbot is a computer program to simulate human conversation. These programs often perform tasks such as customer support, information retrieval, or even social media interaction.
Chatbots are now being adopted in almost every field from marketing to finance. They provide efficient ways to interact with consumers through various channels and platforms.
However, they also raise concerns regarding ethical issues and privacy threats.
What Ethical Issues involving Chatbots?
Ethics refer to the moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior. Chatbots challenge our ethics because they involve the use of algorithms. Further, to produce an outcome based on input.
The use of chatbots raises ethical issues because they are to imitate the human brain and its decision-making process. However, unlike humans, chatbots respond in an automated fashion and don’t employ human judgment.
This behavior may lead to several ethical issues such as spamming and scamming; loss of business and financial fraud; or privacy concerns as it gathers information and data on its users.
How Do Chatbots Impact Privacy?
Privacy refers to the act of protecting one’s personal information from exposure by others without permission. It is generally a fundamental right that all people should have.
But with the advancement in technology and proliferation of the internet, our privacy has been under serious threat.
Chatbots gather and use our personal information without our consent, which can expose us to identity theft, cyberbullying, or even legal problems. Also, most bots are without regulations from privacy laws such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). In fact, many companies who create these robots don’t even have policies for protecting their privacy rights.
According to, a legal expert at the University of Alabama School of Law: “If you’ve got this bot, and you’re considering whether you want to interact with it, it would be nice if you knew if it was recording what you said or if it was sharing what you said or if it was storing what you said.”
The above statement shows how important it is for companies to include privacy regulations while designing bots. So that consumers are aware of how their data is being used before interacting with them.
What Is GDPR?
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is new legislation that impacts all companies operating in EU territories. It came into effect on May 25th, 2018 and aims at giving consumers more control over their personal data. It’s by forcing businesses to be more transparent in how they use and store private information.
With this regulation comes strict rules and punishments for companies who fail to comply with them (fines up to 4% of annual global turnover or €20 Million). This law is considered to be the biggest shakeup of data privacy regulations in 20 years.
How Does GDPR Affect Chatbots?
A computer science post-doctorate from the University of Cambridge, says that this law will have an enormous effect on chatbots: “When companies use chatbots to interact with their customers if those chatbots process personal data then they must comply with the GDPR.”
He goes on to say that many companies are already integrating GDPR into their existing data collection and processing practices. “In particular, companies should identify how they use personal data via chatbots and whether they need to obtain consent before doing so.”
According to a privacy advocate at Cornell University: “the GDPR will require companies to be more transparent about how they handle private information. In theory, that means that consumers should know what their bots are doing behind the scenes.”
What Are Some Ways In Which Chatbots Have Been Used For Fraudulent Purposes?
One of the most common ways in which bots are causing problems is through spamming. Internet users often report spam messages received through social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. These messages contain links that lead to malicious advertisements or websites.
Another way in which bots are causing issues is through online marketing scams. For example, there have been instances where users receive messages from chatbots promoting scams such as crypto-currency frauds and lottery scams; or websites selling fake products such as diet pills.