The Dialogue, an emerging public-policy think tank delivered a conference on AI, Privacy andCross-Border data flows and released a Working Paper titled “Intersection of Artificial Intelligence with Cross-Border Data Flow and Privacy”, at the Constitution Club of India.
The findings of the paper suggest, privacy can complement innovation in AI along with the fact that cross-border flow of data is imperative to drive AI growth in the future. This data may originate from many sources located in multiple jurisdictions, making it imperative that data can move freely across borders.
Founding Director of The Dialogue, Mr. Kazim Rizvi, stated, “This paper addresses two key challenges – enabling cross-border data flows to drive AI and ensuring that high-level privacy standards are complied with for AI deployment. For India to emerge as a leader in AI, it is crucial to harness its potential while maintaining privacy of citizens, while at the same time, we must ensure that data is allowed to flow across borders to give our technologists, scientists, engineers and developers the best possible opportunity to leverage AI for India’s development.”
The conference discussed key issues around the value of data for AI, importance for cross-border data flows, the ethical, legal and privacy aspects around AI deployment and a policy framework going forward.
The keynote address were given by Mr. Kalikesh Singh Deo, MP Lok Sabha and Dr. Neeta Verma, Director-General, National Informatics Centre, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, while Dr. Narendra Jadhav, MP Rajya Sabha, gave the valedictory remarks.
Dr. Neeta Verma, DG, NIC, Government of India stated that AI-driven strategies needs to be developed by our country for social welfare. “An inclusive growth of our country is required. We can’t let AI be just a privilege to the elite, it should include people from all spheres. Look at healthcare in India. There is a lack of access to healthcare and quality healthcare. The problem is not that these facilities are not available in remote areas, but it is that doctors don’t want to go to such areas. AI can assist doctors – whether it’s robotic heart surgery that we saw last week in Gujarat or early diabetic detection. Agriculture, Education and Smart Cities are some of the other areas vital to India’s development.”
Dr. Narendra Jadhav, MP, Rajya Sabha in his remarks mentioned the importance of cross-border data flows and provided some key statistics.“The cross-border data flows have increased 45 times between 2004 and 2014. In 2014 only, they accounted for US $2.8 trillion in GDP and hence, cross-border data flows are important for the development of Industry 4.0”. He further stated, “Moving forward, trade agreements would hold the key to cross-border data flows. For data privacy and security, there needs to be a stakeholder consultation and anonymization of data must be done to protect citizen’s identity.”
