At CES 2026, VicOne and DeCloak will demonstrate new collaborative research on why privacy and cybersecurity need to be integrated in real-world patrol deployments.
As AI-powered security patrol robots move from pilots to actual deployment in public and semi-public environments, the industry faces a growing gap not in autonomy or performance, but in whether these systems can be trusted during unsupervised, real-world operations.
AI security patrol deployments are increasingly being paused or limited not because the robots are no longer functional, but because operators are losing confidence in who is in control, how personal data is being treated, and whether AI decisions are predictable even when unmonitored, according to a new joint study by LAB R7, VicOne's innovation research lab, and DeCloak Intelligences, an expert in privacy-preserving AI technology.
In a real-world patrol environment, cybersecurity, privacy, and AI behavior collapse in the same operational moment. If something goes wrong, the operator will not see a single alert. They see fragments. ”
— Max Cheng, VicOne CEO
The findings are detailed in a new joint white paper, “Can you trust an AI patrol robot at 2 a.m.? Ensuring privacy, control, and AI behavior in patrol operations,” which examines how trust breaks down in real-world patrol operations when robots operate autonomously and with minimal human oversight.
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Controlled piloting assumes trust because someone is always watching. Massive patrol robots operate autonomously through public spaces at night using always-on sensors, but that's where trust begins to crumble.
This collaborative study identifies recurring patterns across U.S. patrol deployments. AI robots continue to work, but gaps in cybersecurity cause operators to lose confidence in command and control. The cameras remain active, but privacy concerns have forced a pause in deployment. AI systems will continue to operate, but unsupervised operation makes their behavior difficult to predict, and trust, not technology, becomes the limiting factor at scale.
“These issues rarely manifest as isolated technical issues,” said Max Cheng, CEO of VicOne. “In a real-world patrol environment, cybersecurity, privacy, and AI operations collapse in the same operational moment. If something goes wrong, operators don't see a single alert; they see it piecemeal.”
Patrol robots operate close to people to perform daily activities, collecting visual and audio data while making autonomous decisions in a dynamic environment. Even if the robot continues to operate normally, one privacy complaint, abnormal AI behavior, or loss of command privileges can bring the entire deployment to a halt.
“Privacy and cybersecurity have traditionally been silos,” said Dr. Yao‑Tung Tsou, president of DeCloak Intelligences. “But in real-world patrol deployments, they surface together. Without unified visibility across robot controls, privacy-preserving data processing, and AI operations, operators are forced to react rather than proactively manage risks.”
Live demonstration at CES 2026
At CES 2026, VicOne and DeCloak Intelligences will demonstrate this unified trust approach with a live patrol robot deployment, showing how privacy protection, cybersecurity controls, and visibility of AI behavior are integrated into a single operational view.
– Personal data can be anonymized at the source, reducing privacy exposure before the data is sent or stored.
– Maintain command authority and system reliability across autonomous patrolling robots.
– Continuously monitor AI behavior and detect anomalies or dangerous decision drift during unsupervised operation.
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