PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

high-tech technology background with eyes on computer display

AI and Privacy 01

I’m delighted to post my new article draft, Artificial Intelligence and Privacy. The article aims to provide the conceptual and practical ground work for how to understand the relationship between AI and privacy as well as provide a roadmap for how privacy law should regulate AI.

Here’s the abstract:

This Article aims to establish a foundational understanding of the intersection between artificial intelligence (AI) and privacy, outlining the current problems AI poses to privacy and suggesting potential directions for the law’s evolution in this area. Thus far, few commentators have explored the overall landscape of how AI and privacy interrelate. This Article seeks to map this territory.

Some commentators question whether privacy law is appropriate for addressing AI. In this Article, I contend that although existing privacy law falls far short of addressing the privacy problems with AI, privacy law properly conceptualized and constituted would go a long way toward addressing them.

Privacy problems emerge with AI’s inputs and outputs. These privacy problems are often not new; they are variations of longstanding privacy problems. But AI remixes existing privacy problems in complex and unique ways. Some problems are blended together in ways that challenge existing regulatory frameworks. In many instances, AI exacerbates existing problems, often threatening to take them to unprecedented levels.

Overall, AI is not an unexpected upheaval for privacy; it is, in many ways, the future that has long been predicted. But AI glaringly exposes the longstanding shortcomings, infirmities, and wrong approaches of existing privacy laws.

Ultimately, whether through patches to old laws or as part of new laws, many issues must be addressed to address the privacy problems that AI is affecting. In this Article, I provide a roadmap to the key issues that the law must tackle and guidance about the approaches that can work and those that will fail.

You can download my article for free on SSRN here:

* * * *

Professor Daniel J. Solove is a law professor at George Washington University Law School. Through his company, TeachPrivacy, he has created the largest library of computer-based privacy and data security training, with more than 150 courses. He is also the co-organizer of the Privacy + Security Forum events for privacy professionals.

Artificial Intelligence Training Course

PSA Courses Button 01

Subscribe to Solove’s Free Newsletter
Professor Solove's Newsletter on Privacy and Security