Navigating Data Privacy in the Age of AI: Strategies for Secure Data Analytics

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly changing how most of us live our daily lives.

From voice assistants to chatbots to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, businesses can use plenty of unique, exciting AI tools to streamline aspects of their daily operations.

However, AI technology often collects and uses personal information protected by data privacy regulations.

As AI continues to evolve, the imperative to address data privacy within AI systems has never been more critical.

In this article, learn why businesses should prioritize balancing data privacy in the age of AI to keep personal data secure from unauthorized access, bad actors, and more.

How AI Relates To Data Privacy

To understand the intrinsic relationship between AI and data privacy, it’s helpful to first define what these terms mean.

What is Data Privacy?

Data privacy refers to the control and choices individuals have over how their personal data is collected and used by external entities.

It encompasses compliance with data privacy laws and building protocols to respect and protect user personal information in all aspects and levels of a business.

Often referred to as a new form of digital currency, personal information includes identifiable details like names, addresses, IP addresses, browsing habits, payment details, and more.

In our modern digital age, businesses collect and use this information for several reasons, including market research, building better user experiences, analytics, and Ad purposes.

If this data is leaked or accessed by an unauthorized party, it could cause harm to the affected individuals. According to various cybersecurity statistics, phishing attacks are among the most common cybercrimes and often target personal data sets.

Prioritizing data privacy helps mitigate these risks and keeps information safe.

What is AI?

In broad terms, artificial intelligence, or AI, is when a machine simulates human intelligence without human intervention.

Over the past few years, AI technology has become much more commonplace and accessible to businesses and consumers alike — consider the popular large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard).

Different AI technologies can automatically generate code blocks, spot possible identity theft, filter out spam messages in an email inbox, or create images, videos, and written content based on a single prompt.

It uses enormous amounts of data to perform successfully and continues to ‘learn’ based on the information it’s fed.

AI Technologies and the Collection of Personal Data

To function properly, AI technology uses huge amounts of data, some of which is considered personal information as defined by data privacy laws.

This data is protected and subject to all applicable legal guidelines.

If your business shares user personal data with an AI platform, it must be done in a compliant way, or you face penalties, like large fines for violating the General Data Protection Regulation or other laws, public backlash, and being forced to stop all processing activities.

What Laws Impact Data Privacy

Many different laws impact data privacy and regulate how businesses can legally collect, process, and use personal information, including the following:

• Australia Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act)
• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
• California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA)
• Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act 2020)
• South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA)
• UK’s General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
• Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA)

These laws may apply to your business depending on your location, where your consumers come from, and how much data you collect.

What Laws Impact AI?

While many data privacy laws exist, fewer laws regulate Artificial Intelligence because the technology is still relatively new.

But in Europe, lawmakers are currently finalizing a version of the EU AI Act, which must be adopted by Parliament and the European Council to officially become law and will likely inspire other countries to adopt similar pieces of legislation.

It organizes AI technologies into risk levels and outlines guidelines for creation, distribution, and security based on how low or high risk it poses to the public.

Strategies for Secure Data Analytics in the Age of AI

To help your business secure data in the age of AI, consider implementing the following strategies.

Follow All Applicable Laws

It’s in the best interest of your business that you follow all applicable laws when collecting or using personal data in tandem with AI services.

This helps you avoid legal troubles and penalties and sets your website up for success when new laws are enacted.

Post a Transparent Privacy Policy

Businesses should generate a privacy policy that transparently informs users about what data is collected and if any of it is shared with or used by an AI platform.

Not only are privacy policies required by law, but according to one study, 50% of users want companies to be transparent when using AI. (Redpoint Global)

Plenty of other shocking data privacy statistics highlight consumers’ desire for businesses to show that they respect personal data — posting a privacy policy is one way to do so.

Obtain Adequate Consent from Users

Ensure you obtain adequate consent from your website visitors, especially if you share data collected from internet cookies with third parties, including AI services.

Data privacy laws require this type of cookie consent management, which involves having a consent banner on your site so users can choose to accept or decline your use of cookies.

Anonymize the Data

If your business wants to feed personal information to an AI algorithm, consider anonymizing the data sets.

This type of data transformation helps protect personal details because it can no longer link back and identify individuals.

Secure the Data

Before sharing any information with an AI platform, create and implement a security plan to ensure all data you collect is safe from unauthorized access.

This includes having a backup plan to restore lost data, limiting who on your team has access to it, and encrypting the data so it’s harder for a bad actor to intercept and decipher it.

Audit Your AI Tools

Create a plan to regularly audit the AI tools your business uses so you can proactively spot security issues or non-compliant data processing activities.

Data privacy laws hold you accountable for what happens to the personal data you collect, store, and share with others, so it’s crucial to routinely vet the AI technology you rely on.

Train Your Team

Training your entire team about data privacy best practices is essential — this ensures everyone is on the same page and is aware of the processes, rules, and regulations your business follows.

Datameer’s Role in Enhancing Data Privacy and Security

 

Datameer’s analytics solutions are designed with the dual goals of leveraging AI for business insights while prioritizing data privacy, illustrating a commitment to responsibly navigating the AI and data privacy landscape.

With Datameer’s robust data preparation and exploration capabilities, businesses can anonymize sensitive information, enforce data governance policies, and ensure that data used for AI and machine learning purposes is handled securely and ethically. Datameer’s platform facilitates the creation of transparent data pipelines.

By incorporating Datameer into their data strategy, companies can not only enhance their AI initiatives but also ensure that they are built on a foundation of data privacy and security.

Summary

AI technology is exciting and has the potential to streamline tedious business tasks, making commercial operations more efficient and effective.

However, this technology requires massive amounts of data, some of which are personal and vulnerable, so it’s important to respect and protect it by prioritizing data privacy.

Doing so helps businesses comply with data privacy laws and sets them up for future success as new AI regulations are developed.