The battle for future markets and bigger market shares is in full swing. The world's most influential companies are in a steady race to develop better automated systems and, in turn, boost artificial intelligence technology – taking them ahead of their competitors. By 2020, AI is expected to turn over more than 21 billion euros worldwide. However, further development of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies seems to be blocked by a major obstacle: data privacy. The more data is consumed, the better these computer algorithms can recognize and capture patterns in the data.

The deployment of machine learning tools across different sectors, be it for eligibility for a loan or scoring candidates during a recruitment process, is becoming more and more common. The main privacy issues relating to machine learning (ML) tools come from the collection of large amounts of information coupled with the tool's ability to make autonomous decisions and actions aimed at maximising success. As the GDPR comes into force tomorrow (25 May 2018), the recently published'GDPR Article 29 Working Party' guidelines in automated individual decision making and profiling is likely to turn any ML activities into hurdles. Let's start by quoting the GDPR itself: 'data subjects shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her'. At first sight, this seems to read that only decisions that are based solely on automated processes trigger a right for the data subject to opt out.