Law Times

Page 10 May 14, 2018 • Law TiMes www.lawtimesnews.com Concerns surfacing over use of personal info in AI BY MARG. BRUINEMAN For Law Times A s artificial intelligence develops and new approaches such as blockchain emerge dealing with huge amounts of data, lawyers say concerns are surfacing over the use and pro- tection of individuals' personal information. Imran Ahmad, who leads Miller Thomson LLP's cybersecurity team, sees the potential for risk as he looks at the emergence and use of arti- ficial intelligence. "For AI to be effective or even for deep learning to be effective, you need a lot of data," he says. "Those issues around the data sets — how they're collect- ed, what is collected, what scope of information are we collecting from an individual — all of that is a thing which is unclear at this stage. That's where some of the risk lies." The question is whether that information can be kept anony- mous so no one is identified or whether it produces analysis with clearly identifiable infor- mation, says Molly Reynolds, a cybersecurity and privacy law- yer with Torys LLP in Toronto. A scenario might involve putting information into a ma- chine that conducts high-level data analysis of 30 people living in the same postal code, she says. If the data set focuses on a gen- der set, any additional charac- teristics that are inputted might lead to the identification of an individual. "There's huge privacy con- siderations when you're design- ing these models," she says, to ensure the right consent or legal basis for the machine-learning tool to use the information is obtained. Reynolds says ensuring that information remains anony- mous is key to protecting per- sonal privacy, but she adds that isn't guaranteed simply by com- bining information from several sources together. "I also think it's going to be important for lawyers because we're looking at contracts be- cause we are representing an or- ganization that wants to buy or license an AI tool," she says. "They need to know what the scope of their rights are and the contracts need to really specify whether personal information is going to be used, whether in- formation is going to be anony- mized, whether information is going to be aggregated, and all the parties really need to under- stand what that means in that particular implementation." The value for companies lies in that aggregate data, not the individual identifiers, adds Kirsten Thompson, who leads McCarthy Tétrault LLP's na- tional cybersecurity, privacy and data management group. She says the challenge, how- ever, is to ensure that the ag- gregated data set is not personal information. Thompson says there are no standards around that yet in the business world like there are in the health-care field where sensi- tive information is made anony- mous when used for documents such as research studies. "Often in the private sector, people will strip out a name and think that the information is an- onymized and that's not actually the case," she says. Canada's privacy legislation requires that companies col- lecting data make any personal information they collect anony- mous. The lack of clear standards laying out what is sufficient to make material anonymous is not only a risk to the individual and their information but also to the organization handling that data, she adds. The companies risk losing a great deal of data if they don't adequately de-identify in- dividuals. The data can be kept for as long as the original business rea- sons for which it was collected exist. But there is a desire by organizations to preserve what they've collected to create larger data sets, says Thompson. That also leaves some uncertainty for the individuals on what happens to their information over the long term, she says. "What the companies who are engaging in this need to be very careful of from their own perspective is that they have the appropriate consent to do this before they start using this in- formation . . . and they have to be certain that if they're acquiring data that it's been appropriately FOCUS FULL DAY IN-CLASS & LIVE ONLINE ACCESS This annual conference gives executives and Corporate Commercial & Technology lawyers an opportunity to network and learn about the most recent and significant developments in Canadian and international Technology Law - all provided by leading practitioners. To inquire about registrations and group rates contact us at 416-609-5868 | Toll Free: 1-877-298-5868 Email: cpd.centre@thomsonreuters.com Please mention Tech Law Conference in the subject line. Powered by 2018 TECHNOLOGY LAW SPRING FORUM MAY 28-29, 2018 CHAIRED BY Donald B. Johnston, Aird & Berlis LLP Natasha Ell Saunders, Vice President, Legal Affairs, TekSavvy Solutions Inc. Vantage Venues 150 King Street West, 16th Floor, Toronto ON, M5H 1J9 REGISTER NOW WWW.TECHLAW-CONFERENCE.CA Untitled-2 1 2018-05-08 4:51 PM It's time to rank… THE TOP 10 CORPORATE AND IMMIGRATION BOUTIQUES Complete the survey online at canadianlawyermag.com/surveys and make your picks. SURVEY IS OPEN UNTIL JUNE 9 th Untitled-3 1 2018-05-08 4:55 PM Imran Ahmad says there could be legal risk around the way personal information is collected and used to develop artificial intelligence. See AI, page 13

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