A new surveillance robot carries microphones and cameras, and can scan the license plates of all the cars it sees.

It sends the data it collects to a company's server, which means the data can be misused by the company, by the state, and by whetever criminals get into the data base. That is the worst possible scenario, but it is standard practice.

Listening and watching systems such as this should be prohibited by law, except when authorized by a court for a specific place and time period.