Data privacy risks to consider when using AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to solve many routine business challenges -- from quickly spotting a few questionable charges in thousands of invoices to predicting consumers' needs and wants. But there may be a flipside to these advances. Privacy concerns are cropping up as companies feed more and more consumer and vendor data into advanced, AI-fuelled algorithms to create new bits of sensitive information, unbeknownst to affected consumers and employees. This means that AI may create personal data. When it does, "it's data that has not been provided with [an individual's] consent or even with knowledge", said Chantal Bernier, assistant and interim privacy commissioner in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada from 2008 until 2014 who now consults in the privacy and cybersecurity practice of global law firm Dentons.