Safe and Ethical AI (SEA) Platform Network · Linking Artificial Intelligence Principles (LAIP)

5. Privacy and Data Governance

AI systems should have proper mechanisms in place to ensure data privacy and protection and maintain and protect the quality and integrity of data throughout their entire lifecycle. Data protocols need to be set up to govern who can access data and when data can be accessed. Data privacy and protection should be respected and upheld during the design, development, and deployment of AI systems. The way data is collected, stored, generated, and deleted throughout the AI system lifecycle must comply with applicable data protection laws, data governance legislation, and ethical principles. Some data protection and privacy laws in ASEAN include Malaysia’s Personal Data Protection Act 2010, the Philippines’ Data Privacy Act of 2012, Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act 2012, Thailand’s Personal Data Protection Act 2019, Indonesia’s Personal Data Protection Law 2022, and Vietnam’s Personal Data Protection Decree 2023. Organisations should be transparent about their data collection practices, including the types of data collected, how it is used, and who has access to it. Organisations should ensure that necessary consent is obtained from individuals before collecting, using, or disclosing personal data for AI development and deployment, or otherwise have appropriate legal basis to collect, use or disclose personal data without consent. Unnecessary or irrelevant data should not be gathered to prevent potential misuse. Data protection and governance frameworks should be set up and adhered to by developers and deployers of AI systems. These frameworks should also be periodically reviewed and updated in accordance with applicable privacy and data protection laws. For example, data protection impact assessments (DPIA) help organisations determine how data processing systems, procedures, or technologies affect individuals’ privacy and eliminate risks that might violate compliance7. However, it is important to note that DPIAs are much narrower in scope than an overall impact assessment for use of AI systems and are not sufficient as an AI risk assessment. Other components will need to be considered for a full assessment of risks associated with AI systems. Developers and deployers of AI systems should also incorporate a privacy by design principle when developing and deploying AI systems. Privacy by design is an approach that embeds privacy in every stage of the system development lifecycle. Data privacy is essential in gaining the public’s trust in technological advances. Another consideration is investing in privacy enhancing technologies to preserve privacy while allowing personal data to be used for innovation. Privacy enhancing technologies include, but are not limited to, differential privacy, where small changes are made to raw data to securely de identify inputs without having a significant impact on the results of the AI system, and zero knowledge proofs (ZKP), where ZKP hide the underlying data and answer simple questions about whether something is true or false without revealing additional information

Principle: ASEAN Guide on AI Governance and Ethics, 2021

Published by ASEAN

Related Principles

Privacy protection and security

Throughout their lifecycle, AI systems should respect and uphold privacy rights and data protection, and ensure the security of data. This principle aims to ensure respect for privacy and data protection when using AI systems. This includes ensuring proper data governance, and management, for all data used and generated by the AI system throughout its lifecycle. For example, maintaining privacy through appropriate data anonymisation where used by AI systems. Further, the connection between data, and inferences drawn from that data by AI systems, should be sound and assessed in an ongoing manner. This principle also aims to ensure appropriate data and AI system security measures are in place. This includes the identification of potential security vulnerabilities, and assurance of resilience to adversarial attacks. Security measures should account for unintended applications of AI systems, and potential abuse risks, with appropriate mitigation measures.

Published by Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, Australian Government in AI Ethics Principles, Nov 7, 2019

III. Privacy and Data Governance

Privacy and data protection must be guaranteed at all stages of the AI system’s life cycle. Digital records of human behaviour may allow AI systems to infer not only individuals’ preferences, age and gender but also their sexual orientation, religious or political views. To allow individuals to trust the data processing, it must be ensured that they have full control over their own data, and that data concerning them will not be used to harm or discriminate against them. In addition to safeguarding privacy and personal data, requirements must be fulfilled to ensure high quality AI systems. The quality of the data sets used is paramount to the performance of AI systems. When data is gathered, it may reflect socially constructed biases, or contain inaccuracies, errors and mistakes. This needs to be addressed prior to training an AI system with any given data set. In addition, the integrity of the data must be ensured. Processes and data sets used must be tested and documented at each step such as planning, training, testing and deployment. This should also apply to AI systems that were not developed in house but acquired elsewhere. Finally, the access to data must be adequately governed and controlled.

Published by European Commission in Key requirements for trustworthy AI, Apr 8, 2019

Plan and Design:

1 The planning and design of the AI system and its associated algorithm must be configured and modelled in a manner such that there is respect for the protection of the privacy of individuals, personal data is not misused and exploited, and the decision criteria of the automated technology is not based on personally identifying characteristics or information. 2 The use of personal information should be limited only to that which is necessary for the proper functioning of the system. The design of AI systems resulting in the profiling of individuals or communities may only occur if approved by Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer, Compliance Officer or in compliance with a code of ethics and conduct developed by a national regulatory authority for the specific sector or industry. 3 The security and protection blueprint of the AI system, including the data to be processed and the algorithm to be used, should be aligned to best practices to be able to withstand cyberattacks and data breach attempts. 4 Privacy and security legal frameworks and standards should be followed and customized for the particular use case or organization. 5 An important aspect of privacy and security is data architecture; consequently, data classification and profiling should be planned to define the levels of protection and usage of personal data. 6 Security mechanisms for de identification should be planned for the sensitive or personal data in the system. Furthermore, read write update actions should be authorized for the relevant groups.

Published by SDAIA in AI Ethics Principles, Sept 14, 2022

· Prepare Input Data:

1 The exercise of data procurement, management, and organization should uphold the legal frameworks and standards of data privacy. Data privacy and security protect information from a wide range of threats. 2 The confidentiality of data ensures that information is accessible only to those who are authorized to access the information and that there are specific controls that manage the delegation of authority. 3 Designers and engineers of the AI system must exhibit the appropriate levels of integrity to safeguard the accuracy and completeness of information and processing methods to ensure that the privacy and security legal framework and standards are followed. They should also ensure that the availability and storage of data are protected through suitable security database systems. 4 All processed data should be classified to ensure that it receives the appropriate level of protection in accordance with its sensitivity or security classification and that AI system developers and owners are aware of the classification or sensitivity of the information they are handling and the associated requirements to keep it secure. All data shall be classified in terms of business requirements, criticality, and sensitivity in order to prevent unauthorized disclosure or modification. Data classification should be conducted in a contextual manner that does not result in the inference of personal information. Furthermore, de identification mechanisms should be employed based on data classification as well as requirements relating to data protection laws. 5 Data backups and archiving actions should be taken in this stage to align with business continuity, disaster recovery and risk mitigation policies.

Published by SDAIA in AI Ethics Principles, Sept 14, 2022

· Right to Privacy, and Data Protection

32. Privacy, a right essential to the protection of human dignity, human autonomy and human agency, must be respected, protected and promoted throughout the life cycle of AI systems. It is important that data for AI systems be collected, used, shared, archived and deleted in ways that are consistent with international law and in line with the values and principles set forth in this Recommendation, while respecting relevant national, regional and international legal frameworks. 33. Adequate data protection frameworks and governance mechanisms should be established in a multi stakeholder approach at the national or international level, protected by judicial systems, and ensured throughout the life cycle of AI systems. Data protection frameworks and any related mechanisms should take reference from international data protection principles and standards concerning the collection, use and disclosure of personal data and exercise of their rights by data subjects while ensuring a legitimate aim and a valid legal basis for the processing of personal data, including informed consent. 34. Algorithmic systems require adequate privacy impact assessments, which also include societal and ethical considerations of their use and an innovative use of the privacy by design approach. AI actors need to ensure that they are accountable for the design and implementation of AI systems in such a way as to ensure that personal information is protected throughout the life cycle of the AI system.

Published by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in The Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, Nov 24, 2021