Security, Privacy, and Ethical Risks in OpenClaw

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Jin, Yutong, Zhang, Zelin, Lyu, Zhijin, Ni, Jianbing
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Jin, Yutong
Zhang, Zelin
Lyu, Zhijin
Ni, Jianbing
author_facet Jin, Yutong
Zhang, Zelin
Lyu, Zhijin
Ni, Jianbing
contents This paper systematically investigates the security, privacy, and ethical risks, as well as the traceability challenges of OpenClaw, a locally executable AI agent system for natural language interaction and real-world task completion. While OpenClaw shows strong potential for personal assistance, office automation, cross-platform task management, and information integration, it also raises serious security, privacy, and ethical concerns. By analyzing its system architecture, core functionalities, deployment model, and representative application scenarios, this paper aims to reveal the risks that may arise when such a highly privileged agent is integrated into personal and organizational digital environments. We focus in particular on the challenges associated with persistent local storage, tool invocation, cross-context information aggregation, multi-user interaction, and the integration of plugins and external services. We argue that these issues constitute major barriers to the trustworthy deployment and widespread adoption of this technology. Finally, we summarize the open challenges in security defenses, privacy protection, ethical governance, and traceability in agent use, and call for joint efforts from researchers, developers, deployers, and regulators to build AI agent systems that are safer, more reliable, and more trustworthy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_23330
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Security, Privacy, and Ethical Risks in OpenClaw
Jin, Yutong
Zhang, Zelin
Lyu, Zhijin
Ni, Jianbing
Cryptography and Security
This paper systematically investigates the security, privacy, and ethical risks, as well as the traceability challenges of OpenClaw, a locally executable AI agent system for natural language interaction and real-world task completion. While OpenClaw shows strong potential for personal assistance, office automation, cross-platform task management, and information integration, it also raises serious security, privacy, and ethical concerns. By analyzing its system architecture, core functionalities, deployment model, and representative application scenarios, this paper aims to reveal the risks that may arise when such a highly privileged agent is integrated into personal and organizational digital environments. We focus in particular on the challenges associated with persistent local storage, tool invocation, cross-context information aggregation, multi-user interaction, and the integration of plugins and external services. We argue that these issues constitute major barriers to the trustworthy deployment and widespread adoption of this technology. Finally, we summarize the open challenges in security defenses, privacy protection, ethical governance, and traceability in agent use, and call for joint efforts from researchers, developers, deployers, and regulators to build AI agent systems that are safer, more reliable, and more trustworthy.
title Security, Privacy, and Ethical Risks in OpenClaw
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23330