Artificial intelligence and its use to analyze large, traditionally unwieldy sets of data has revolutionized the ways in which data is used. Privacy and data protection regulations and concerns have risen in tandem. These regulations typically concern any information relating to personal information (e.g., name, address, Social Security number, etc.) and provide a person with numerous rights related to its collection, use and access. For example, prominent data privacy laws such as Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 regulate “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person” and “information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household,” respectively.

As the power of AI increases, the amount and type of data that falls into these categories will increase. Where current AI technology may identify diseases in an MRI scan, future AI technology may fully identify a user. Notably, patient health records have already been at issue in data privacy fines for lax protection. Innovative uses for AI technology may likewise create data privacy compliance issues. For example, the Spanish soccer league, LaLiga, was recently fined for its use of location data and speech recognition technology aimed at preventing piracy.